Graceful Woman Warrior A Story of Mindfully Living In The Face Of Dying

"Graceful Woman Warrior" is a gutsy, thought-provoking and deeply moving posthumous memoir about mindfully living and dying with cancer. Compelled to use a Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer diagnosis as an opportunity to grow, learn and discover who she truly was, Terri Luanna da Silva started a blog about her journey. Riding the terrifying cancer treatment roller coaster of hope to despair over and over again, Terri struggled to balance her heart's desire to treat her illness holistically, with the brutality of traditional cancer treatment. Ultimately, she chose to go on a spiritual pilgrimage to Europe, surrounding herself with grace lessons, gratitude and spirituality in order to make life about living and not just avoiding death.

Fulfilling a promise to Terri when she whispered, "I think I'm dying, I want you to tell people," co-author and aunt, Laurie O'Neil, along with Terri and her daughter, Marisa Alegria da Silva, take you on a sacred journey between, through and beyond life and death. Taken directly from Terri's blog, "Graceful Woman Warrior" offers a life perspective so rare, so powerfully transformative, so hopeful in the face of interminable darkness, it leaves a deep imprint on readers hearts.

A bold blueprint for navigating the sacred cycles of life and death, the authors invite you to open your heart to Terri's haunting yet ultimately transcendent story with the full knowledge that in so doing you are opening your heart to the possibility of reshaping, redefining or perhaps even rewriting the meaning of your own.

Marisa Alegria da Silva is a nine-year-old girl, writing songs, making art, having fun and most importantly eating candy. A fourth-grade student at James M. Quinn School, Marisa dreams of having her own horse and all the animals she dreams of. But for now, she can play with her favorite dog, Aura. And to this day, she will be happy, sad, excited, nervous and all those feelings. And her Mamãe will be doing all those things, too. In her memory, she can picture her and Mamãe baking a cake and licking the bowl together. And even though her Mamãe is not alive right now, Marisa knows Mamãe has all those feelings too and is busy creating beautiful sunsets, putting Marisa's favorite songs on the radio, and visiting Marisa by sending a deer or two near her.