Life with an Impossible Person

A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Transformation

“Heiman’s wordcraft elevates her memoir to poetry...with both deep tenderness and heartbreaking honesty. She raises valuable questions about the choices we all make along the hard road of loving another human being.” (Regina Sara Ryan, author of Women Challenge the Lie and Igniting the Inner Life)

At 28, Joan Heiman said “I do” to a man her mother called “every Jewish mother’s dread.” Her new husband, Philip, was unconventional to the nth degree, a poet and astrologer with little regard for a stable income or retirement plan. For the next 37 years, they traveled together from dream to dream, country to country, and finally to Philip’s death.

In this telling of their unorthodox history, their heartbreaking journey toward his death, and the soul-shattering grief following his passing, Heiman writes with both pathos and humor about the courage needed to fully embrace love, death, and renewal. This finely wrought memoir is an ode to living with an impossibly beloved person...and an exploration of braving life without him.

©2018 Joan Heiman (P)2020 Joan Heiman