My eyes flooded with tears that began rolling down my face. Horrified at my public display of grief, I had to keep myself from all-out sobbing over Isabel’s death before the person sitting next to me on the plane thought me mentally unstable and requested to be moved to another seat.


This was my third time reading the book The Saving Graces, and I cried all three times when each of the friends read Isabel’s letters after her death. I stumbled upon The Saving Graces, a novel by Patricia Gaffney, one evening when perusing Barnes & Noble for something good. The words “New York Times Bestseller” caught my eye, and I decided to give Gaffney a try, though I was unfamiliar with anything she
had written.


The Saving Graces is the story of four friends and how each is there for the others through the ups and downs of life: childlessness, broken relationships, love, illness, and death. I read the book three times because I wanted to join the friendship circle of Lee, Rudy, Isabel, and Emma again and because it deeply impacted the way I viewed friendship, both the kind of friendships I wanted and the kind of friend I wanted to be. For me The Saving Graces raised the bar, as well as the stakes.


I loved the way the others supported Rudy when she moved out of her home and through the abuse she encountered.The unmitigated appreciation for each individual friend was evidenced as Isabel wrote parting letters to her three friends. I was inspired by the manner with which the friends got snippy with each other, and yet quickly forgave and forgot.


Finally, I was moved by how the loss of one left an enormous hole that could not, nor would, ever be filled in the others...