Judith Letting Go: Six Months in the World's Smallest Death Cafe

by Mark Dowie

An old man learns how to die from a younger woman facing death
For the entire six months that Mark Dowie became friends with Judith Tannenbaum, they both knew she was going to die. In fact for most of that time they knew the exact hour she would go ... sometime between 11:00 AM and noon, December 5, 2019, which she did. They talked about many things during those months, but the rapidly approaching moment of Judith’s death came to inform and shape their entire conversation. Death was, as she said, “the undercurrent and the overstory of our relationship” ... one of the deepest, most profound and fulfilling of Mark’s life. This book is ultimately about the lost human art of releasing everything that matters to the living in preparation for the inevitable. It is a rare lesson offered by a poet who somehow taught herself, and then the author, how to let go.

123 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 13, 2024

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, this is an incredibly and brutally honest book about death, from the perspective of the author in the process of being with his close friend and poet Judith as she prepares to die.
Beautifully written, full of heart and spirit.

[Santiago AB · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful memoir of a beautiful friendship. Great meditations on death and dying. Would’ve liked for him to expand on the other deaths in his life that he mentions. The treatment of the difference between suicide and letting go are interesting but I’m not sure I fully agree with them. I understand how physical pain is an extremely hard thing to endure although I don’t necessarily agree that it’s more noble to let go or die from physical pain than to let go from spiritual/mental pain. Regardless, this is a book that works well as a wise advisor, as death itself for our final moments.

[Ross Whitten · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a book about a person learning how to die, this felt like it was written at arm's length. We get a lot of the author telling us how great and intimate his time with Judith was, without letting the reader be part of those conversations, and despite multiple refrains that Judith and her daughter both gave the author permission to share everything.

I don't doubt that Judith was an incredible person; however, the narration focuses so much on the author's internal experience and not her own that I didn't feel I knew or cared about her by the end of the book. At my most uncharitable, I'd be inclined to say that outside of her musings on death, life, and mortality, I don't know that the author knew Judith that well either. Her death is presented as a jumping-off point for his own self-actualization.

The tone was also dry and repetitive, and I was distracted by a typo early in the book. I wish it had been edited a little more thoroughly. Ultimately, I don't know that I got much more out of reading the book than I did from the Goodreads summary.

[Sherry Stanton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written book but very difficult to accept the choice Judith made. Did she seek advice on possible treatment for alleviating the pain caused by her foraminal stenosis.

I would like to have read that she had done so, but there was nothing doctors could do to help her, apart from prescribing pain killers. Perhaps I missed this in the early part of the book.

I really enjoy reading books written in the first person. This is a good example. At the end I felt heartbroken for the author, the pain and loss of this very special friend, all his energy, care, interest and love for Judith, gone forever.

[New Village Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Dying well is one of life’s greatest challenges. In this short but poignant memoir Mark Dowie finds the method where he least expected it to be, and shares it with the world.”
— Robert Reich, Former US Secretary of Labor; Professor of Public Policy at the University of California UC Berkeley

“For decades I’ve admired Mark Dowie’s fearlessness as an investigative reporter. But it’s a different kind of bravery he shows in this book: the courage to take on a subject that most of us tiptoe around—and to do so in a way that is compassionate, sensitive, and deeply moving.” — Adam Hochschild

[Jean Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very poignant and personal story that should have us all thinking about our own death and how we want to approach it. And how we can live better until then.

[Rika Mason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated reading this book. It’s reflective and insightful writing on such a raw topic of accompanying a friend Home, opens this topic with heart and conscience.