I thought I was prepared. My mother was old and had lived a full life. I knew I would grieve but believed our bond was strong enough to transcend death. As it turned out, I was wrong. I wasn't prepared at all.

When it came time to say goodbye to my once vibrant, stubborn, fiercely independent mother, my two sisters and I found ourselves navigating six weeks of hospice care in the small Ohio town where we'd grown up. Together, we became the "K-Team", managing decisions both big and small as we faced the impossible inevitability of our mother's death.

Losing Mom isn't a guide to grief, and it doesn't offer tidy lessons. It's simply the story of living through the end of a parent's life—one day at a time.

I wrote this book to remember my mother as she was, to honor the complicated love between siblings, and to bear witness to what it means to stay present when there is nothing left to fix.