In this tender, honest retelling spanning the last decade of her mother’s life, Vietnamese American Zen teacher Sister Tue Nghiem shares the deep challenges and unexpected gifts of caregiving for a beloved parent. In this tender, candid memoir looking back over the last seven years of her mother’s life, a Vietnamese American Zen teacher shares the deep challenges, unexpected gifts, and the pathways she found through the responsibilities of caregiving and the long-term aftermath of loss. Ordaining as a Buddhist nun right after university, the young Sister Tue Nghiam (Sister Insight) set out to study and practice mindfulness. Zig-zagging in space and time between the United States, Vietnam, and France, Sister Tue Nghiam reveals how developing the art of presence can be a key to resiliency, connection, clarity, and peace, even in the most difficult moments of caregiving and anticipatory grief. Drawing on her lifetime of mindfulness practice and the ancestral wisdom of Zen, she shares how taking a silent retreat ten years after her mother’s death helps her integrate her love for her mother into her love for all beings, and explores how a caregiver can remain grounded, compassionate, and free while navigating the emotional weight of a parent’s declining health. As well as being a moving story of a woman’s love for her mother, the book includes a resource section with Zen teachings on presence for caregivers.
