Whence and Whither

"Thomas Lynch is the man to whom people in Milford, Michigan finally surrender wives, mothers, fathers, even newborns, the man who—as he puts it—goes 'the distance with the dead,' escorting bodies to fire or earth. Many of us are too frightened to accompany the bodies we love on their final journeys; after they have been disposed of, we honor our dead at memorial services. Such rituals are 'the funereal equivalent of a wedding without the bride,' as Lynch puts it. If Americans sometimes seem shallow and anxious, one of the reasons may be that we hide death from ourselves. It is, therefore, no small thing that through the alchemy of brilliant language, Thomas Lynch has made these reflections on death feel safe. By turns he creates a portrait of a northern village, muses about the nature of time passing, introduces a gallery of poets and poems, meditates on profound religious questions, and offers a history of his own spiritual life. This book is marked by such humor, confidence, and grace that I wish everyone who is unsettled by death—and who isn’t?—could read it." 
—Jeanne Murray Walker, author of Helping the Morning: New and Selected Poems

“Lynch’s latest book is a wistful but vivid collage of memoir, poems (his own and others’), stories, and even a short play. He knits these myriad pieces together with candor, humor, and some grief, conjuring the mystery that is human living and dying with insights from his well-known career as undertaker as well as his own growing awareness of getting older and the increasing loss, through death or distance, of dear friends and family members. Somehow, he flawlessly blends tragedy and comedy, weaving together everything from his pig-valve heart transplant, to the treeless land of County Clare, to a pet jackass, to slipping the ashes of a friend into a river. Here, more so than ever, Lynch writes with the very soul and guts of himself and invites us to peek alongside him through the veil and into the eternal.”
—Heidi Haverkamp, author of Holy Solitude: Lenten Reflections with Saints, Hermits, Prophets, and Rebels