Heaven's First Breath is officially here.
This is one of the most personal kinds of fiction I have written—not because Frank and Marlene are real people, but because the emotional world around them is one I have lived beside for decades.
Serious illness changes a family. It changes roles, conversations, plans, bodies, faith, and the way ordinary days feel.
But illness never tells the whole truth about a person.
Frank is more than ALS. Marlene is more than a caregiver. Their children are more than their different coping styles. Hospice is more than a service that enters near the end. And death, though real, is not the only thing happening in the room.
The book asks a question that has followed me through years of pastoral care: How do we keep living when we cannot change the outcome?
The answer is not simple. But the story keeps returning to love, dignity, help, humor, faith, presence, and the ordinary human acts that make life feel like life.
If you read Heaven's First Breath, I hope you come away thinking: I hope I never have to do this—but I know it is possible.
Heaven's First Breath is available now in Kindle and paperback.
[VERIFIED PRIMARY BUY LINK]
Thank you for reading,
Brent