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At the End of Words: A Daughter's Memoir
Through raw journal entries and poems, Miriam Stone - now a college student - has created a stirring tribute to her late mother and a memorial to an extraordinary year of grief and self-discovery.
I turn back toward the street and catch her eye. I haven’t been accepted to school yet. She hasn’t announced her death yet. But in that glance is our first goodbye.
Miriam Stone’s mother is dying of cancer, and for the first time in this young writer’s life, words seem impotent. To tell her mother the lifetime of things she wants to say is akin to losing hope. To say goodbye is to give up. Even writing poetry, which once flowed in long streams, no longer comforts - she writes a different poetry now, spare and without answers. As the author conveys in this deeply moving, authentic memoir, poetry is found in every moment of every day, and at the end of words comes a new beginning. Miriam Stone’s heartfelt, spontaneous words will speak to anyone who has experienced grief or loss.
I turn back toward the street and catch her eye. I haven’t been accepted to school yet. She hasn’t announced her death yet. But in that glance is our first goodbye.
Miriam Stone’s mother is dying of cancer, and for the first time in this young writer’s life, words seem impotent. To tell her mother the lifetime of things she wants to say is akin to losing hope. To say goodbye is to give up. Even writing poetry, which once flowed in long streams, no longer comforts - she writes a different poetry now, spare and without answers. As the author conveys in this deeply moving, authentic memoir, poetry is found in every moment of every day, and at the end of words comes a new beginning. Miriam Stone’s heartfelt, spontaneous words will speak to anyone who has experienced grief or loss.
55 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2003
1 person is currently reading
53 people want to read
About the author
Miriam Stone
2 books3 followers"Writing AT THE END OF WORDS: A DAUGHTER'S MEMOIR was never a choice for me, but a necessity," says Miriam Stone. "To surrender to words and the power of creativity was to allow myself to heal."
A freshman at Columbia when she began work on AT THE END OF WORDS, Miriam Stone was already a published writer before graduating from high school. Three of her poems, written when she was fifteen and sixteen, appear in Betsy Franco's acclaimed anthology THINGS I HAVE TO TELL YOU: POEMS AND WRITING BY TEENAGE GIRLS. Shortly after Miriam started her senior year of high school, she learned that her mother, who had been battling cancer for several years, had taken a turn for the worse. "I was filled with a great desire to talk to her and to others in my family, but the idea that her illness, and probable death, were a reality, was something I couldn't face," the author says. "I chose to use writing instead as a way of expressing what was most difficult to say: that I was afraid I would never be able to talk to her again."
Miriam Stone's mother died that spring. When the author started college in the fall, she felt compelled to organize her writing and generate new material, with the aim of creating a cohesive piece about her late mother and her own year of grief and self-discovery. "I always envisioned it as a book, but I didn't necessarily envision getting it published," she says. "I just thought it was something I really wanted to do for myself." After a year and half of writing and self-editing, Miriam Stone sent her manuscript to anthologist Betsy Franco. "Miriam was meant to be a writer," Betsy Franco says. "The writing in her book is very pure, very straightforward. She could have gone over the top, but she didn't. She lets you get very close, but she keeps enough distance that the work is extremely moving." Editors at Candlewick Press agreed. AT THE END OF WORDS, combining raw journal entries and poems, was published just in time to mark the author's college graduation.
"I don't know who I would be right now if I hadn't written this book," Miriam Stone admits. "Through writing it, I was able to come to terms with many of the conflicts in my life as well as to begin to heal. It also gave me the opportunity to create a memorial to my mother through words and ideas. Literature was extremely important to her, and I think that there is no tribute to her more fitting than a work of literature written in her honor. I also hope that this book can be a positive voice and a step in the healing process for any reader who has experienced loss."
Miriam Stone grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and graduated from Columbia University in May 2003 with a degree in creative writing and anthropology. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, and works as a freelance writer and editor.
A freshman at Columbia when she began work on AT THE END OF WORDS, Miriam Stone was already a published writer before graduating from high school. Three of her poems, written when she was fifteen and sixteen, appear in Betsy Franco's acclaimed anthology THINGS I HAVE TO TELL YOU: POEMS AND WRITING BY TEENAGE GIRLS. Shortly after Miriam started her senior year of high school, she learned that her mother, who had been battling cancer for several years, had taken a turn for the worse. "I was filled with a great desire to talk to her and to others in my family, but the idea that her illness, and probable death, were a reality, was something I couldn't face," the author says. "I chose to use writing instead as a way of expressing what was most difficult to say: that I was afraid I would never be able to talk to her again."
Miriam Stone's mother died that spring. When the author started college in the fall, she felt compelled to organize her writing and generate new material, with the aim of creating a cohesive piece about her late mother and her own year of grief and self-discovery. "I always envisioned it as a book, but I didn't necessarily envision getting it published," she says. "I just thought it was something I really wanted to do for myself." After a year and half of writing and self-editing, Miriam Stone sent her manuscript to anthologist Betsy Franco. "Miriam was meant to be a writer," Betsy Franco says. "The writing in her book is very pure, very straightforward. She could have gone over the top, but she didn't. She lets you get very close, but she keeps enough distance that the work is extremely moving." Editors at Candlewick Press agreed. AT THE END OF WORDS, combining raw journal entries and poems, was published just in time to mark the author's college graduation.
"I don't know who I would be right now if I hadn't written this book," Miriam Stone admits. "Through writing it, I was able to come to terms with many of the conflicts in my life as well as to begin to heal. It also gave me the opportunity to create a memorial to my mother through words and ideas. Literature was extremely important to her, and I think that there is no tribute to her more fitting than a work of literature written in her honor. I also hope that this book can be a positive voice and a step in the healing process for any reader who has experienced loss."
Miriam Stone grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and graduated from Columbia University in May 2003 with a degree in creative writing and anthropology. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, and works as a freelance writer and editor.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
January 27, 2012
This is a beautiful book. A memoir of the death by cancer and the legacy of the author's mother, it is a beautifully wrought portrait of grief and hope, loss and celebration. The power of the poetry is matched by the poetry of the prose.
"There are certain things that you don't know, things that should be said. Like how beautiful your death was. How simple, on top of its intricacies. Your decline poetic, your fight heroic, the love that poured from you and to you so astounding, it swelled even the room you died in. it still billows in e every time I breathe. Your death gave as much life as it destroyed. It marked my passage into my new life, equipped with the strength of a mother and daughter wrapped in one. It gave me love without boundaries." (p. 54)
"There are certain things that you don't know, things that should be said. Like how beautiful your death was. How simple, on top of its intricacies. Your decline poetic, your fight heroic, the love that poured from you and to you so astounding, it swelled even the room you died in. it still billows in e every time I breathe. Your death gave as much life as it destroyed. It marked my passage into my new life, equipped with the strength of a mother and daughter wrapped in one. It gave me love without boundaries." (p. 54)
March 13, 2018
A daughter, who lost her Mother to cancer, celebrates her Mother's life and learns to accept her painful, tragic death in this heartbreaking memoir.
August 13, 2024
Spare, vivid, beautiful. So beautiful. In only a few words, this short book makes me think about all sorts of things about how I feel about my parents. And, simply by showing moments, it reminds me to make the most of every moment.
October 16, 2017
Very heartwarming. Read it in like an hour
December 29, 2020
What a beautiful, intimate time written in words as the daughter deals with her mom's illness and passing.
December 5, 2024
Such a gorgeous memoir. All the poems are so heartfelt, especially 'Dreaming of my Period'.
July 17, 2025
This small book - just 55 pages - is a memoir writen by a daughter to her mother who died from cancer. The daughter generally writes poetry with ease. A high school student, she is waiting for acceptance to college. While her mother is dealing with cancer, the daughter is not able to write poetry to her mother to express her feelings, fearful that it would be like losing hope. After her mother dies and Miriam is a college student, she writes this tribute to her mother, describing the year of grief and now able to tell her mother the many things she did not tell her mother while her mother lived. I thought this memoir was beautiful. It would be a perfect book for a teen or young adult who has lost a parent, as well as for adults.
December 11, 2024
extremely gut wrenching and raw and relatable
January 29, 2025
This was a hard book for me to read as my mother also died of cancer. I was able to relate to many things in the book and I did shed a tear or two.
November 21, 2011
Miriam is a high school senior who is trying to find the perfect way to say goodbye to her dying mother. Maybe a blessing to have the opportunity to say goodbye, but a curse because how can you sum up everything you want to say in a goodbye?
Miriam writes poetry as a coping method for handling her mother's cancer. The book format goes back and forth between narrative and poetry to create a memoir. Not only is dealing with her mother's cancer a struggle but the idea of being left alone when all along she has been fighting for independence is almost too ironic to handle.
"Your death gave as much life as it destroyed."
Key issues include disease, specially cancer. Other issues include dealing with teachers and thinking beyond tomorrow when the image of your dying mother can't escape your mind.
Miriam writes poetry as a coping method for handling her mother's cancer. The book format goes back and forth between narrative and poetry to create a memoir. Not only is dealing with her mother's cancer a struggle but the idea of being left alone when all along she has been fighting for independence is almost too ironic to handle.
"Your death gave as much life as it destroyed."
Key issues include disease, specially cancer. Other issues include dealing with teachers and thinking beyond tomorrow when the image of your dying mother can't escape your mind.
February 6, 2010
I just read this during Annie's nap. It's a quickie. Sad and beautiful and heartbreaking, poetic and memorable. A tribute to the author's mom, a short accounting of what the daughter went through as her mom lived the last stages of life with cancer and died. Reminded me of About Alice and No More Words : A Journal of My Mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, both of which I really liked. But again, tough to read without feeling heart-wrenching empathy.
July 5, 2015
A thin memoir written for teens by a teen, only 55 pages of poetry interspersed with monthly entries about her mother's death and the months that followed. It gives on hope for the future of the language to read such words written by young people.
Just Between Breaths
Hour over
hour
I watch her rise
and fall.
In between breaths,
the room throbs.
My fingers scream.
I wait for her white
cheeks to move.
My heart stops.
I stare until
the breathing breaks.
I sleep beside her,
curled in jeans on the floor,
yellow morning
spreads over me.
Voices circle,
pale nurses swarm,
I hear only my own breath.
Just Between Breaths
Hour over
hour
I watch her rise
and fall.
In between breaths,
the room throbs.
My fingers scream.
I wait for her white
cheeks to move.
My heart stops.
I stare until
the breathing breaks.
I sleep beside her,
curled in jeans on the floor,
yellow morning
spreads over me.
Voices circle,
pale nurses swarm,
I hear only my own breath.
April 3, 2016
This book is very sad but interesting. This book is about this girl Miriam, and her mother that has cancer and is dying from it. Miriam never thought her mother would die so she took it for granted you can say. Miriam loved her mother so much, she would tell her mother everything that would happen to her she would just tell her everything they were best friends. Miriam's mother died peacefully. Miriam was going to college now and she felt trapped because she couldn't tell her mother that she made it. Miriam started writing letter to her mom even thought she is dead and can't read them Miriam knew her mother read them anyway.
June 11, 2010
At the ends of Words: A Daughter's Memoir is about a girl who her mom died of cancer. the girl was very close to her mother. It talked about many struggles she went through. It was in a form of a poem. And many memories about her mom.
I can make a text to text. I can make a text to text because this reminded me of my sisters keeper. They both had lost someone from cancer. they struggled alot.
I gave this book 4 stars because I thought it was a extremly good book the main character goes through a lot of struggles.
I can make a text to text. I can make a text to text because this reminded me of my sisters keeper. They both had lost someone from cancer. they struggled alot.
I gave this book 4 stars because I thought it was a extremly good book the main character goes through a lot of struggles.
June 20, 2008
This book helped me picture what my cousins have gone through over the past weeks/ months as their mother suffered from cancer and eventually died. I could just picture them in these exact moments. The book was very quick and easy to read, but I felt like I was sitting down with the author during some very intimate moments of her life. This young author is very brave. She is a blessing those of us trying to understand the loss of a mother.
March 3, 2008
Brief mention of sex.
Miriam's mother is dying of cancer while Miriam goes through the struggles of adolescence. These memoirs share the frustration, pain, and emptiness Miriam struggles with even after the death of her mother. Included are poems written by Miriam from her perspective and her mother's point of view according the Miriam.
Miriam's mother is dying of cancer while Miriam goes through the struggles of adolescence. These memoirs share the frustration, pain, and emptiness Miriam struggles with even after the death of her mother. Included are poems written by Miriam from her perspective and her mother's point of view according the Miriam.
July 1, 2008
This was a very powerful book. It describs a mother dieing with cancer and it is through the daughters eyes , well, her dairy. And it makes you want to cry but it is really good and the book shows you how this can happen to anyone and can ruin your like in a second.
October 21, 2009
Beautiful little story of a daughter, senior in high school, saying goodbye to her mother who is dying of cancer. Good for anyone who has lost a family member. If you liked Rubber Houses, this is good too.
November 18, 2007
A daughter's memoir of her mother's bout with cancer, told in the form of verse journal entries.
November 17, 2010
"At the end of words there is only her breathing. I put my head on her arm and cry to the rhythm, our symphony of goodbyes."
August 28, 2015
A short story about a young girl who loses her mother. Its about strength and growing up. Mix of story and poetry. Very pretty. Also very sad. It made me want to call my mom.
May 21, 2015
Read this book in an hour, but the gentle truths of it will carry much longer in my thoughts.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews