Through poetry, paintings and journal entries, this book describes a topography of five years of grief after the death of the author/artistÕs husband. The healing power of art in bringing consciousness to the inner world is revealed in the process. In the course of those five years, two grandchildren are born, one child leaves home, pets die, and there is work to be done. The impact of grief with its gifts and its destruction is revealed in journal entries, poems and graphically in paintings. This is a description of the seeming relentless sorrow and yet the inexorable change in a period of mourning and transformation.