The Lightness of Reprieve - by Marilyn T Hedgpeth (Paperback)

About the Book

What does it mean to provide hope, encouragement, solace and joy to friends staying with you during a clinical trial for pancreatic cancer?

Book Synopsis

What does it mean to provide hope, encouragement, solace and joy to a dear friend who is staying with you during a clinical trial for pancreatic cancer? My faith informs me that no love is greater than friendship; to lay down one's life for a friend. And yet, I think the power of friendship is generally undervalued by our culture. These poems arose from that context, both personal and societal, as I nurtured plants in my summer garden, ran daily errands in the car, and shared meals and laughter with our friend and her husband, always looking for signs of strength and hope for our days together.

Review Quotes

My longtime friend and colleague-in-caregiving, Marilyn, springs lightly into the reader's heart and mind, considering with fine-grained detail and broad strokes our connected-ness, with humor and ideas imagined but unspoken-all to help "re-fresh the thirsty spirit". . . . Her writing is timely and timeless.

-Pediatrician Anne English Walker, MD, FAAP

Marilyn Hedgpeth is a retired minister who has a special knack for combining the spirituality of a sermon with lyrical poetic language. Her voice conveys subtle messages about our place in the world in the 21st century with the spiritual world of two millennia. She has a sharp eye for detail and a tuned ear for voices, and crafts a colorful and important world in her poems.

-Paul Deblinger, Founder: Window Poetry, Washington, DC;

Co-Founder, Mid-American Review

In our culture, we are inundated with too many words. It is refreshing when someone's gift with words provides us helpful insights. Marilyn' s gift with words in her delightful book of poetry is refreshing and inspiring.

-The Reverend Joseph S. Harvard