The end of your life book club

Mary Anne Schwalbe was a loving wife and the perfect mother, who raised three kids while holding down a full-time job, and in her spare time raised money to build a library in Afghanistan and traveled the world to care for refugees. She respected and gave ear to every person she came across, and never met a book that she didn't like. Or could find some redeeming qualities of. She did more good in her last year and a half than I've done in my whole life.

Don't you just hate people like that?

Granted, her son may have carefully edited out any memories that might have shown her in a less than flattering light. But I suspect that she really was that good of a woman.

My feeling was that the only reason for this memoir was to serve as therapy for Will. It most definitely wasn't the series of book reviews that I'd expected going in. Books were named, yes. Gobs of them. But what either Mary Anne or Will thought of the books was only fleetingly mentioned. More than anything else, the books served as a way to open up communication between mother and son - to give them topics to discuss that didn't have to do with cancer and death.