Dolores Leckey has been a senior research fellow at Woodstock Theological Center since 1998 where she is coordinator of a new project, Theology in the City. She is the author of nine books. This thoughtful book revolves around her journal entries for a year after the death of her husband Tom. As the mother of four and grandmother of seven, Leckey ponders the changes and the challenges of her life brought on by this loss.

At the outset, she points out that novelist Reynolds Price experienced a transformation after a diagnosis of cancer of the spine: "He was treated and lived, but his way of living was completely changed. Though he is now wheelchair bound, he writes that these last decades have been the most creative and productive in his life, and his work confirms that." Leckey's journey through sorrow is divided into four chapters which follow the liturgical calendar of the year.

She reflects upon what it all means as she takes the insurance money and uses it for a final payment on the mortgage; as she meets with friends who gather to remember Tom (his love of biblical history, his habit of wearing suspenders, his acceptance of different others); as she realizes that she does not pray as much to Jesus as to Tom; as she reflects upon she significance of the communion of saints; as she reframes dreams as "loving contacts with the Divine"; as she makes a pilgrimage to Ireland alone; as she savors creativity; and as she tastes new happiness. All of these happenings enable Leckey to "journey inward and to try to locate my new center."

Grieving With Grace offers a helpful spiritual guide to the changes and challenges that accompany the loss of a loved one.