Everyone experiences grief differently. Some want to move on immediately, others let grief flow through them, and still others get stuck. The latter can’t or don’t want to move on because their grief is the last thread of connection they have with their loved one. To let go would make the loss feel even more final and devastating.

The comforting message at the core of It All Belongs: Love, Loss & Learning to Live Again, a new book by Judy and Roy Smoot, is that it’s okay to be part of the latter group.

“The essence of It All Belongs is to help more people allow (even embrace) their grief as necessary to healing and honoring their loved one – and to move gently with it through to the other side,” said Smoot.

Smoot’s wife, Judy, died due to brain cancer in 2016, and his book offers an intimate window into her grief while she traveled from the devastating diagnosis to the end of her life. In its special juxtaposition of stories, It All Belongs traces the couple’s final four years together, weaving in tools and practices to create an immersive reader experience.

By approaching dreaded end-of-life realities with wit, candor and hands-on help, the book offers a soulful mosaic that blends an engaging, deeply personal story with expressive art, journaling, poetry and writings.

It All Belongs offers spiritual tools and healing practices to help readers face end-of-life realities by exploring the beauty, light and even joy tucked within the most tragic of circumstances. This beautifully illustrated, 299-page hardcover book encourages readers to listen deeply, explore purposefully and fully embrace this sacred time.

“Hold nothing back in your questions, rantings, thoughts, emotions,” the author writes in the book’s introduction. “As this book’s title affirms, everything you feel, think, ask, experience, live through and release is a sacred part of your journey.

“It all belongs.”