I don’t easily recommend books but this one is a winner. Her prologue begins, “I am grateful and deeply honored that you are here. Which means that if you are here, then I am not. But it’s okay.” Julie had Stage 4 colon cancer and passed away in her mid-forties.
My last two years have been difficult for me and she has helped me to make sense of it.
Page 8. To her two young daughters, she writes, “You will understand that nothing lasts forever, no pain, or joy. You will understand that joy cannot exist without sadness. Relief cannot exist without pain. Compassion cannot exist without cruelty. Courage cannot exist without fear. Hope cannot exist with despair. Wisdom cannot exist without suffering. Gratitude cannot exist without desperation. Paradoxes abound in this life. Living is an exercise in navigating within them.” 
A gift for yourself or a friend having a difficult time in any way.
“The Unwinding of the Miracle,” Julie Yip-Williams.
Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
Soulful Muse 