How to Find Closure with a Dying Loved One

A chat with bestselling author and illustrator Wendy MacNaughton about her new illustrated book, which grew out of her artist's residency at Zen Hospice Project Guest House in San Francisco.

Wendy MacNaughton’s work is based in the practices of drawing, social work, and storytelling. She combines the practice of deep looking, listening, and drawing to create stories of often overlooked people, places, and things. Wendy has worked on varied projects across mediums and fields, and in collaboration with numerous groups and individuals, but one thing stays consistent: Wendy uses drawing as a vehicle for connection. As a visual columnist for The New York Times and California Sunday Magazine, Wendy drew stories everywhere from high school cafeterias to Guantanamo Bay. She has authored and drawn two books, How To Say Goodbye and Meanwhile in San Francisco, and illustrated many others, including the #1 New York Times Bestseller Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat and New York Times Bestseller The Gutsy Girl by Caroline Paul. She is the Creator and Drawer-in-Chief of DrawTogether, a participatory drawing show for kids, and The Grown-Ups Table, lessons and community for drawing-minded adults. She is also the co-founder of Women Who Draw with Julia Rothman, an advocacy database launched in 2016 to increase visibility and opportunities for underrepresented artists, illustrators, and cartoonists. 

Readers,

I’m a big fan of artist, illustrator and graphic journalist

Wendy MacNaughton

—who publishes the wonderful sort of art class newsletter

DrawTogether

, for both kids and adults. So, naturally, I was excited to learn she had a new book out, How to Say Goodbye. Published in mid-July by Bloomsbury, the book is the culmination of an artist’s residency MacNaughton participated in at Zen Hospice Project Guest House in San Francisco.

The book is just beautiful, with gorgeous illustrations of people living out their final days in hospice, their visitors, and the mundane objects and scenes around them. The text is spare, which feels appropriate, and focuses on what MacNaughton learned from her time at Zen Hospice Project about how to be truly present for the dying—to help them have a good death, and their loved ones find closure.

Order the book.

In his introduction to the book, palliative care physician B.J. Miller, M.D. writes:

This book is not pretty. Pretty is strategic and tidy. This book is beautiful. Which is to say true. Death is like that: full of the sights and smells of dying, bodies doing bodily things. It’s not always pretty. It’s always beautiful.

How to Say Goodbye is a wonderful, quiet companion for anyone in the process of losing a love one, and witnessing their end of life. I highly recommend it.

Below, for paid subscribers, is a video interview I conducted with MacNaughton recently. I hope you enjoy it! - Sari

Here’s the video: