★ 03/01/2021
Minister Becker debuts with a stirring chronicle of the events, moments, and stories that led to her reconciliation with mortality. The death of Becker’s friend from cancer at age 40 (a “struggle that made me profoundly unsettled”) inspired her to look back on how she has dealt with her own misfortunes of miscarriages, sickness, and accidents. Particularly affecting are the chapters that focus on the bittersweet surprises of hospice care, such as Becker getting closer to her mother and finally understanding her mother’s zest for life while witnessing her dying days. Becker also reflects on how to respect the long-dead, such as the creation of a Zen “water children” ceremony in the park “to honor the losses of children, born and unborn, in the community.” The final chapter reckons with one’s own mortality, specifically Becker’s multiple cancer scares, how these brought on feelings of peace, and the admittance that those peaceful feelings were fleeting. Becker’s eloquence is a salve for confronting a difficult topic: “There was a tremendous sense of freedom in catching even a tiny glimpse of this web of interconnection, as if nothing existed outside its beautiful cosmic structure.” This will be a comfort for anyone contemplating their own mortality, or those in search of advice for others. (May)
"In Heartwood, Barbara Becker inspires us to follow our curiosity into a world that is both universal and a source of our uniqueness. And what could be better than that?"—Gloria Steinem, bestselling author and activist
“Death fascinates and repels us. Barbara Becker has written a gorgeous book about it, and her writing will draw in everyone who is willing to approach the most serious topic we all must face. Becker gives the reader empathic access to some of life’s peak moments, along with insights into life’s biggest questions."
-Jonathan Haidt, Professor, NYU-Stern School of Business, author of The Righteous Mind
"Heartwood is a luminous book...Within the first few pages I knew I could trust Barbara Becker to navigate the holy land of death and grief and take me with her...I have rarely read a book that left me feeling so fundamentally blessed. Highly recommended."
—Mirabai Starr, author of Caravan of No Despair and Wild Mercy
“Both tear-jerking and joyful, Heartwood reveals how an intimate conversation with loss can bring forth the ‘forever’ possible through love. Across time zones, generations, and cultural divides.”
—Sarah Bowen, author of Spiritual Rebel: A Positively Addictive Guide to Finding Deeper Perspective and Higher Purpose
"A powerful and exquisite book on being with dying and learning from loss that is written from the marrow of real experience and as well from the heart. It is a courageous exploration of grief, death, and release. This is a book that uplifts, instructs, inspires, and guides." - Roshi Joan Halifax, Abbot, Upaya Zen Center
“Heartwood is wise and moving without a wasted word. Becker’s luminous meditation on death and life is a gift to us all."—Dave Isay, founder of StoryCorps
“Heartwood is a gem.”—Dr. Denis Mukwege, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, author of forthcoming The Power of Women: Learning from Resilience to Heal Our World
"Becker takes us on a poignant journey through her life in "Heartwood". She shows us the threads connecting herself to ones who passed and with each tug on a thread we learn more about love and loss, life and death. Precious stories that have the power to move your heart, this book is a true gift.—Sharon Salzberg, author of Real Love and Real Change
“Becker debuts with a stirring chronicle of the events, moments, and stories that led to her reconciliation with mortality…Becker’s eloquence is a salve for confronting a difficult topic…This will be a comfort for anyone contemplating their own mortality, or those in search of advice for others.”—Publishers Weekly Starred Review
"A graceful meditation on divine deliverance...Once firmly entrenched in our “death-shy” contemporary culture, the author is now a reassuring advocate for peace and interreligious understanding, and she views dying as an opportunity to seek enlightenment and give thanks, regardless of one’s preferred spiritual path." - Kirkus
"A resource filled with wisdom and one that readers will find themselves returning to often in both good times and bad." - Shelf Awareness
"An affecting and informative memoir about the lessons we can glean from life as well as death." - Library Journal
04/23/2021
"Something really does happen when we bear witness to the lives of others," observes Becker in her moving debut memoir. That something, according to Becker, is a seemingly counterintuitive understanding that when humans connect with each other, the notion of our mortality can become easier to bear. This is the lesson Becker imparts as she recounts the many lives and deaths she has witnessed as both a hospice volunteer and interfaith minister. The author celebrates those lives with easy and unadorned prose, and offers honest reflection on how each has strengthened her trust in life and loss. She doesn't claim that saying goodbye is always easy; indeed, sometimes the things the dying need to hear are the hardest for the living to say, Becker writes, detailing the heartbreaking moment when she told her father it was okay to finally let go. Yet despite the pain of loss, Becker explains, she has come to learn that like the rings that surround the heartwood of a tree, "the dead become the heart of the living and the living nourish the enduring essence of the dead." VERDICT An affecting and informative memoir about the lessons we can glean from life as well as death.—Megan Duffy, Glen Ridge P.L., NJ
2021-03-03
A Manhattan-based interfaith minister grapples with the complexities of mortality.
When Becker’s childhood friend Marisa died from cancer at age 40, the author was understandably crushed. However, the event also opened a long-suppressed wellspring of insecurities about death, and Becker’s grieving process became life-altering. She began approaching life more proactively, spiritually, and ecologically. She planted bulbs in a makeshift plot in the city, attended a silent meditation retreat, practiced the Japanese “forest bathing” and “water children” rituals, and made a general promise to herself to “participate more fully in everyday matters.” The author shows how this intensive self-reflection benefited her on many levels, and she hopes to inspire others to participate in their own introspection when encountering life’s myriad challenges. Among other episodes and life events that led her to a more intentional soul-searching journey: a dangerous internship in politically unstable Bangladesh, a miscarriage, her father’s struggles with Alzheimer’s disease, and family losses from Covid-19. In too many instances, she writes, “death had slipped quietly into my home and declared herself my teacher.” But what, she asks, “was I supposed to do with these understandings in the practical, brass-tacks way of a modern woman going about her daily business?” While the book as a whole is inspiring, the most moving passages involve Becker’s time as a hospice volunteer. Though consistently heartbreaking and often frustrating, the author’s experiences were also transformative. She incorporated compassionate Zen Buddhist end-of-life practices into her own humanitarian service vows, and a host of nurturing interpersonal experiences broadened her understanding of how her life could be made more useful in both spiritual and altruistic empathetic service to those in need. Once firmly entrenched in our “death-shy” contemporary culture, the author is now a reassuring advocate for peace and interreligious understanding, and she views dying as an opportunity to seek enlightenment and give thanks, regardless of one’s preferred spiritual path.
A graceful meditation on divine deliverance.
