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Description
Writer Susan Tweit and her economist-turned-sculptor husband Richard Cabe had just settled into their version of a “good life” when Richard saw thousands of birds one day—harbingers of the brain cancer that would kill him two years later. This compelling and intimate memoir chronicles their journey into the end of his life, framed by their final trip together, a 4,000-mile-long delayed honeymoon road trip.
As Susan and Richard navigate the unfamiliar territory of brain cancer treatment and learn a whole new vocabulary—craniotomies, adjuvant chemotherapy, and brain geography—they also develop new routines for a mindful existence, relying on each other and their connection to nature, including the real birds Richard enjoys watching. Their determination to walk hand in hand, with open hearts, results in profound and difficult adjustments in their roles.
Bless the Birds is not a sad story. It is both prayer and love song, a guide to how to thrive in a world where all we hold dear seems to be eroding, whether simple civility and respect, our health and safety, or the Earth itself. It’s an exploration of living with love in a time of dying—whether personal or global—with humor, unflinching courage, and grace. And it is an invitation to choose to live in light of what we love, rather than what we fear.
As Susan and Richard navigate the unfamiliar territory of brain cancer treatment and learn a whole new vocabulary—craniotomies, adjuvant chemotherapy, and brain geography—they also develop new routines for a mindful existence, relying on each other and their connection to nature, including the real birds Richard enjoys watching. Their determination to walk hand in hand, with open hearts, results in profound and difficult adjustments in their roles.
Bless the Birds is not a sad story. It is both prayer and love song, a guide to how to thrive in a world where all we hold dear seems to be eroding, whether simple civility and respect, our health and safety, or the Earth itself. It’s an exploration of living with love in a time of dying—whether personal or global—with humor, unflinching courage, and grace. And it is an invitation to choose to live in light of what we love, rather than what we fear.
Product Details
| Publisher | She Writes Press |
| Publish Date | April 27, 2021 |
| Pages | 312 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Paperback / softback |
| EAN/UPC | 9781647420369 |
| Dimensions | 215.9 X 139.7 X 25.4 mm | 408.2 g |
About the Author
Susan J. Tweit is a plant biologist who began her career working in the wilderness studying wildfires, grizzly bear habitat and sagebrush ecosystems. She turned to writing when she realized she loved telling the stories in the data. She is an award-winning author of twelve books, including a previous memoir, Walking Nature Home, and has been published in magazines and newspapers including Audubon, Popular Mechanics, the Denver Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Her essays and commentaries have been collected in numerous anthologies, and heard on regional public radio. She is cofounder of the Border Book Festival and Audubon Rockies’ Be A Habitat Hero Project, and an active member of Women Writing the West and Story Circle Network. Visit her online at www.susanjtweit.com.Tweit writes from the high desert outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, and a farm at the foot of high peaks near Paonia, Colorado, where deer and coyotes saunter through her garden and stars stud a dark night sky.
Reviews
2021 Sarton Book Awards: Memoir, Winner
“Reading Bless the Birds left me awed and shaken. Tweit writes with the fascination of a scientist and the lucidity of a poet. In these pages, her heart swings open wide, opening the rest of ours with her.”
—Craig Childs, author of Virga & Bone
“Bless the Birds is the book for our times. It’s a splendid blend of landscapes, relationships, spirituality—finding meaning in life framed by an awareness of death—and creative work. I have a dozen people I want to share this authentic, honest, hopeful story with. You will too. It’s a treasure.”
—Jane Kirkpatrick, New York Times best-selling author of Something Worth Doing
“There is so much grace in the pages of Bless the Birds. Susan Tweit’s fluid prose lays bare an exquisite honesty regarding the dearest and most difficult of human transitions—from life to death. She does not pretend the journey is easy or affect a posture of transcendent acceptance. Rather, she joins hands with her husband Richard in the face of his diagnosis as they explore together a complex and expansive sense of love, challenge, and transformation, and a shared passion for the wild earth. I will carry the wisdom found in this book with me always.”
—Lyanda Haupt, author of Mozart’s Starling
“I loved this book. I needed this book. I drank it in huge gulps. I shouted at the book, and I hugged it to my chest. Above all, I learned from this book: Courage comes only to those who are afraid. Grief comes only to those who love deeply. Birds come only to those who lift their eyes. Grace comes only to those who give themselves up for lost. Bless the Birds is a rare gift.”
—Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Earth’s Wild Music
“Bless the Birds is spare and precise, and full of love and resilience. It’s the story of two lovers taking a journey that none of us want to take, a journey toward parting. They walk it with eyes and hearts wide open, finding joy in their moments and showing just how much tenderness and grace are possible at life’s endings—so much love that the reader’s heart spills over with it just by accompanying them.”
—Priscilla Stuckey, author of Tamed By a Bear
“It’s such a ripe time for this book about how to meet fear, loss, and sorrow with courage and grace and, most importantly, love.”
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, author of Hush
“Bless the Birds reminds us that dying is entwined with living and we can do both with our hearts outstretched. Tweit shares the deeply personal story of the path she and her late husband walked, illuminating the fear, hope, bewilderment, rage, astonishment, laughter, exhaustion, gratitude, and joy when we open ourselves to life and death and love. This book is a gift for medical, palliative care, and hospice professionals, as well as people navigating illness in their own lives.”
—Elizabeth Holman, PhD, palliative care psychologist
“Anyone who has lived through the long and painful death of a loved one is tempted to write about it. The idea is to give death—and life—meaning. Rarely do those accounts rise to the level of poetry. Tweit’s does. Well known for her essays, Tweit turns the story of her husband, sculptor Richard Cabe, into a moving tribute. ... Bless the Birds is a joyful account mixed with the agony of loss.”
—Denver Post
“Reading Bless the Birds left me awed and shaken. Tweit writes with the fascination of a scientist and the lucidity of a poet. In these pages, her heart swings open wide, opening the rest of ours with her.”
—Craig Childs, author of Virga & Bone
“Bless the Birds is the book for our times. It’s a splendid blend of landscapes, relationships, spirituality—finding meaning in life framed by an awareness of death—and creative work. I have a dozen people I want to share this authentic, honest, hopeful story with. You will too. It’s a treasure.”
—Jane Kirkpatrick, New York Times best-selling author of Something Worth Doing
“There is so much grace in the pages of Bless the Birds. Susan Tweit’s fluid prose lays bare an exquisite honesty regarding the dearest and most difficult of human transitions—from life to death. She does not pretend the journey is easy or affect a posture of transcendent acceptance. Rather, she joins hands with her husband Richard in the face of his diagnosis as they explore together a complex and expansive sense of love, challenge, and transformation, and a shared passion for the wild earth. I will carry the wisdom found in this book with me always.”
—Lyanda Haupt, author of Mozart’s Starling
“I loved this book. I needed this book. I drank it in huge gulps. I shouted at the book, and I hugged it to my chest. Above all, I learned from this book: Courage comes only to those who are afraid. Grief comes only to those who love deeply. Birds come only to those who lift their eyes. Grace comes only to those who give themselves up for lost. Bless the Birds is a rare gift.”
—Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Earth’s Wild Music
“Bless the Birds is spare and precise, and full of love and resilience. It’s the story of two lovers taking a journey that none of us want to take, a journey toward parting. They walk it with eyes and hearts wide open, finding joy in their moments and showing just how much tenderness and grace are possible at life’s endings—so much love that the reader’s heart spills over with it just by accompanying them.”
—Priscilla Stuckey, author of Tamed By a Bear
“It’s such a ripe time for this book about how to meet fear, loss, and sorrow with courage and grace and, most importantly, love.”
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, author of Hush
“Bless the Birds reminds us that dying is entwined with living and we can do both with our hearts outstretched. Tweit shares the deeply personal story of the path she and her late husband walked, illuminating the fear, hope, bewilderment, rage, astonishment, laughter, exhaustion, gratitude, and joy when we open ourselves to life and death and love. This book is a gift for medical, palliative care, and hospice professionals, as well as people navigating illness in their own lives.”
—Elizabeth Holman, PhD, palliative care psychologist
“Anyone who has lived through the long and painful death of a loved one is tempted to write about it. The idea is to give death—and life—meaning. Rarely do those accounts rise to the level of poetry. Tweit’s does. Well known for her essays, Tweit turns the story of her husband, sculptor Richard Cabe, into a moving tribute. ... Bless the Birds is a joyful account mixed with the agony of loss.”
—Denver Post
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