The Author (Nina Riggs)

Nina Riggs was a poet and memoirist who died in 2017 (at the age of 37) after cancer initially found in her breast metastasized throughout her body. At the time of her death – and of her struggle to find new ways to live while facing death – she was married (to a lawyer named John) and the mother of two sons (Freddy and Benny). She was also the daughter of Jan (who died, also of cancer, while the author was in treatment for hers) and of Peter (who survived both his wife and his daughter), and the sister of Charlie (who also survived the deaths of his mother and sister). She is also a descendent of renowned, and respected, American poet/philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. Her relationships with all these people, but particularly her husband and sons, were primary motivating factors in both her fight to defeat...