The Thresh­old Singers are a small group of vocal­ists that count author Bren­da Miller as a mem­ber; they gath­er around the bed­sides of those in hos­pi­tals or hos­pice. The group sings in uni­son, meet­ing the patient where they are in that moment; some­times it’s a lul­la­by, qui­et­ly mur­mured; some­times it’s a song request­ed by the patient; some­times it’s just a melody hummed. Miller notes that the singers are there to bear wit­ness and help some­one cross a thresh­old — in this case, the thresh­old from life into death.

An apt sub­ti­tle for this exquis­ite col­lec­tion of essays and poet­ry from the award-win­ning Bren­da Miller could be ​“thresh­old.” Through­out the book, Miller invites us to cross a thresh­old with her, albeit a dif­fer­ent sort of divide into the chap­ters of her life. The read­er accom­pa­nies her on her jour­ney of unex­pect­ed care­tak­ing. Miller’s sto­ry­telling is raw, inti­mate, and mov­ing; this sto­ry is an ele­gy to her par­ents, the per­son that she was, and even her beloved dog.

Miller weaves togeth­er time­lines through­out her sto­ry — the first part is focused on tak­ing care of her father. Sub­se­quent­ly, the nar­ra­tive hones in on her time car­ing for her moth­er in the wake of her father’s death. Miller expert­ly inter­twines sto­ries of her younger, more rebel­lious self with tales of her adult life. We meet her dog, her neigh­bors, and her friends with col­or­ful details; we see the frog para­pher­na­lia that her par­ents col­lect­ed over a life­time, and the hum­ming­birds that kept her moth­er company. 

It is a life well-lived, told through short essays and poems. My favorite poem, enti­tled ​“Pan­toum for Elder­ly Women,” is just that: a pan­toum, a poem of inter­lock­ing four-line stan­zas where lines 2 and 4 of a stan­za then become lines 1 and 3 of the next stan­za, for the entire­ty of the poem. This piece is a beau­ti­ful com­men­tary on aging and nature, made more poignant with the inter­est­ing structure.

Ulti­mate­ly, Miller writes with a grace and sim­plic­i­ty that helps to soft­en the heavy sub­ject of grief, which is noto­ri­ous­ly chal­leng­ing to write about in an acces­si­ble way. Almost with­out real­iz­ing it — like with the beau­ti­ful qui­et music of the Thresh­old Singers — the read­er is lulled into her fas­ci­nat­ing and heart­felt story.