A Novel of Love, Loss, and the Light That Remains
This book is my worst nightmare. Most of the poems and letters in the book I have taken from what I have written to my beautiful wife Jen over our past 35+ years together. I cannot imagine losing my wife in this way or in any way. I am not sure how I could possibly handle it. I love her so much.
John thought he understood grief. But he was never prepared for the silence that would follow after his wife, Jennie, lost her battle with brain cancer. Nothing prepares you for the absence of someone who knew your every thought, shared your dreams, and made even the ordinary moments feel like miracles.
It’s been six months since Jennie passed, and John is a shadow of the man he once was, detached, weary, and quietly waiting for his own final breath in a hospital room filled with memories. Then his daughter Cassy, pregnant with her first child and grieving in her own way, uncovers a box of Jennie’s hidden poems and letters, words written with fierce love and unshakable faith.
As Cassy reads them aloud to her father, something begins to change. Each poem unlocks a memory. Each letter opens a door. Together, father and daughter revisit the life John shared with Jennie, from their first dance and shared ice cream cones to joyful moments of parenthood, painful nights of doubt, and quiet mornings of prayer. Through Jennie’s words, they both begin to heal.
The Last Kiss Remembered is a deeply emotional journey through decades of love, a love that endures past loss, rooted in faith and built on the smallest, most sacred moments. It’s a story of reconciliation, of holding on and letting go, and of the healing that comes when we remember that love doesn’t end, it transforms.
Told through interwoven stories of present-day reflection, poetic flashbacks, and heartfelt letters from Jennie, this novel will resonate with anyone who has loved deeply and lost, and yet still believes in hope.
If you’ve ever found comfort in a memory, wept over a handwritten note, or wondered how to keep going when someone you love is gone…. This book is for you.