What do you think?
Rate this book
When All That's Left of Me Is Love: A Daughter's Story of Letting Go
When All That's Left of Me Is Love is poignant and powerful. Linda Campanella provides an intimate look inside her family and her heart as she relives the joy-filled year and long goodbye leading to her terminally ill mother's death. In the process, she comes to terms with the permanence of her loss and finds comfort in profound gratitude for many unexpected gifts.
At once heart-wrenching and heartwarming, When All That's Left of Me Is Love is about living fully and purposefully after learning someone very dear to us will be gone too soon. Readers can expect to be touched deeply by one woman's example of grace and courage and one family's determination to embrace life while awaiting death.
At once heart-wrenching and heartwarming, When All That's Left of Me Is Love is about living fully and purposefully after learning someone very dear to us will be gone too soon. Readers can expect to be touched deeply by one woman's example of grace and courage and one family's determination to embrace life while awaiting death.
230 pages, Paperback
First published August 2, 2011
About the author
Linda Campanella
2 books7 followersI am an accidental author. WHEN ALL THAT'S LEFT OF ME IS LOVE, an account of my last year with my terminally ill and eternally wonderful mother, essentially wrote itself in the weeks of intense grief following her death in September 2009. Chapters poured out of me at all hours of the day and night, flowing directly from a broken heart to a blank page. I finished the manuscript by mid-December, in time to give it to my father for Christmas, his first without his wife and sweetheart of 52 years. It is a story I never intended or expected to tell, but now that it's written, I am happy to keep my mother's legacy of love and her joyful, generous spirit alive through its pages.
Professionally I keep busy as a Connecticut-based management consultant; my solo practice serves nonprofit organizations of all sizes and missions. Previously I have been a corporate executive, a college administrator, and a trade negotiator. (I am a walking advertisement for the value of a liberal arts degree. See where a major in German can take you?!)
I am married to my high school sweetheart. We have three sons in their twenties and a mini-goldendoodle whose unconditional love is no substitute for my mother's but sure makes me feel good.
Professionally I keep busy as a Connecticut-based management consultant; my solo practice serves nonprofit organizations of all sizes and missions. Previously I have been a corporate executive, a college administrator, and a trade negotiator. (I am a walking advertisement for the value of a liberal arts degree. See where a major in German can take you?!)
I am married to my high school sweetheart. We have three sons in their twenties and a mini-goldendoodle whose unconditional love is no substitute for my mother's but sure makes me feel good.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
Want to Read
February 5, 2018Thank you to the author, the publisher, and Goodreads for a copy won in a giveaway!
March 9, 2018
First of all, a big thank you to the author and publisher for giving me a copy of this book. It truly was amazing.
This book is a truthful look at what a daughter goes through when her mother is given a terminal diagnosis, knowing that time is limited, that the person who brought her into the world will soon be leaving it.
Linda opens her heart and shares the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, the hopes and the dreams, the future that may never be. Eventually, everyone must come to terms with the odds that mom really is dying, and a decision to live and enjoy the time left is the best that can be done.
If you are still blessed to have your mother with you, you will want to hug her tighter and hold her closer after reading this. If, like me, you have a mom who has been called home, you will remember the good days and the bad days. For me, my mom lived 3 years from the time she started on dialysis. It was really a long goodbye. For Linda, whose mom was given two months to live after being diagnosed with metastatic cancer that had gone to her brain, it was a year and one day before mom peacefully left this earth.
That final year is shared in this book, including personal emails that were sent between mother and not only Linda, but her siblings. Love is sprinkled throughout. Thank you Linda for sharing your story. Love never dies.
This book is a truthful look at what a daughter goes through when her mother is given a terminal diagnosis, knowing that time is limited, that the person who brought her into the world will soon be leaving it.
Linda opens her heart and shares the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, the hopes and the dreams, the future that may never be. Eventually, everyone must come to terms with the odds that mom really is dying, and a decision to live and enjoy the time left is the best that can be done.
If you are still blessed to have your mother with you, you will want to hug her tighter and hold her closer after reading this. If, like me, you have a mom who has been called home, you will remember the good days and the bad days. For me, my mom lived 3 years from the time she started on dialysis. It was really a long goodbye. For Linda, whose mom was given two months to live after being diagnosed with metastatic cancer that had gone to her brain, it was a year and one day before mom peacefully left this earth.
That final year is shared in this book, including personal emails that were sent between mother and not only Linda, but her siblings. Love is sprinkled throughout. Thank you Linda for sharing your story. Love never dies.
March 21, 2018
I received this Kindle edition through Goodreads. This is one daughter's memoir about her family losing their mother to cancer. She takes you through her mother's last year of life, and how the family dealt with the inevitable loss to come. They tried to "live" each day, instead of focusing on death. There are some lovely poetry excerpts as well as emails the family exchanged. I think this book would benefit anyone going through similar circumstances. This is a book about a sad situation that many people have to endure, but it is mostly a book about love.
March 15, 2018
Fantastically written memoir of motherhood
This was such a heart wrenching, warm, lovely story of love, to read. Thank you so much for sharing this grief filled, love story with us. I can’t even imagine losing my mom. I’m the same age as she was when this was all going on, and it broke a piece of my heart reading it. It was so well written I felt her pain, as well as her moments of joy.
This was such a heart wrenching, warm, lovely story of love, to read. Thank you so much for sharing this grief filled, love story with us. I can’t even imagine losing my mom. I’m the same age as she was when this was all going on, and it broke a piece of my heart reading it. It was so well written I felt her pain, as well as her moments of joy.
July 24, 2026
I really wish half stars were a thing. I would give this 3 1/2. It was touching, but rather specific to the loss over time of a mother from cancer. My own mother is nearing death, but she’s 91. Has lived a good and long life. We also have the faith that there is more to the journey and that we will see her again when we cross to the other side. There was some poetry in the book that I really liked.
March 8, 2023
Linda Campanella’s deeply personal and vulnerable memoir, When All That’s Left of Me is Love, reflects a fierce love for her dying mother and an undying gratitude for her life. This book is a primer for all searching for healing after the death of a loved one.
June 8, 2018
Beautifully written
This book is so beautifully written . I love that this was as big a tribute to living as it was to death and grief.
This book is so beautifully written . I love that this was as big a tribute to living as it was to death and grief.
October 30, 2023
Due to the subject matter, this is a difficult read
April 19, 2013
Linda Campanella calls herself an “accidental author.” No doubt this is because her book would never have been written had her mother, Nancy Sachsse, not died a year and a day after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, and Campanella not felt a deep need to come to terms with the pain of her loss. She wrote the book as a tribute to her mother and a gift to her father. The rest of the world is better off for the fact that she has chosen to share it with us.
In “When All That’s Left of Me is Love,” Campanella effectively uses personal narrative, copies of family letters and emails and many poems, especially works collected in Good Poems, an anthology of poems from Garrison Keillor’s public radio show, The Writer's Almanac. With this, she shares her story of her family's determination to live fully and enjoy life for as long as possible, while simultaneously anticipating her mother’s death.
According to Campanella, the story originally wrote itself in her mind during the sleepless days and weeks that followed her mother’s death, and she felt compelled to write it down.
While the reader knows that it will have an inevitable sad ending, it is nevertheless a heartwarming memoir filled with insights and inspirations that will comfort and console anyone who suddenly finds themselves confronting the inevitability and imminence of death.
I would characterize the book as an uplifting portrait of living, loving, believing, and letting go. It is clearly a book that ought to be read by anyone who is in the process of losing a family member – as well as by anyone who will do so in the future.
In short, it is a celebration of the special bond between mothers and daughters, a love story on multiple levels, a spiritual journey, and lesson in the healing power of poetry. Besides that, it presents a good case for daily celebrating life through an end of day happy hour.
According to Campanella, the book essentially wrote itself in the weeks of intense grief following her mother’s death in September 2009. She says, “Chapters poured out of me at all hours of the day and night, flowing directly from a broken heart to a blank page. I finished the manuscript by mid-December, in time to give it to my father for Christmas, his first without his wife and sweetheart of 52 years. It is a story I never wanted or expected to tell, but now that it's written, I am happy to keep my mother's legacy of love and her joyful, generous spirit alive through its pages.”
This is Campanella’s first book. A management consultant, married and the mother of three sons, she is a graduate of the first co-ed class of Amherst College and earned a master’s from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. When not writing, she runs a management consultancy serving non-profit organizations. Prior to starting her own firm, she worked as an international trade negotiator in the executive branch of the US government, a corporate executive in the aerospace industry and a senior administrator at a private college. She lives in West Hartford, Connecticut, with her husband and high school sweetheart, Joe, and a mini-goldendoodle.
In “When All That’s Left of Me is Love,” Campanella effectively uses personal narrative, copies of family letters and emails and many poems, especially works collected in Good Poems, an anthology of poems from Garrison Keillor’s public radio show, The Writer's Almanac. With this, she shares her story of her family's determination to live fully and enjoy life for as long as possible, while simultaneously anticipating her mother’s death.
According to Campanella, the story originally wrote itself in her mind during the sleepless days and weeks that followed her mother’s death, and she felt compelled to write it down.
While the reader knows that it will have an inevitable sad ending, it is nevertheless a heartwarming memoir filled with insights and inspirations that will comfort and console anyone who suddenly finds themselves confronting the inevitability and imminence of death.
I would characterize the book as an uplifting portrait of living, loving, believing, and letting go. It is clearly a book that ought to be read by anyone who is in the process of losing a family member – as well as by anyone who will do so in the future.
In short, it is a celebration of the special bond between mothers and daughters, a love story on multiple levels, a spiritual journey, and lesson in the healing power of poetry. Besides that, it presents a good case for daily celebrating life through an end of day happy hour.
According to Campanella, the book essentially wrote itself in the weeks of intense grief following her mother’s death in September 2009. She says, “Chapters poured out of me at all hours of the day and night, flowing directly from a broken heart to a blank page. I finished the manuscript by mid-December, in time to give it to my father for Christmas, his first without his wife and sweetheart of 52 years. It is a story I never wanted or expected to tell, but now that it's written, I am happy to keep my mother's legacy of love and her joyful, generous spirit alive through its pages.”
This is Campanella’s first book. A management consultant, married and the mother of three sons, she is a graduate of the first co-ed class of Amherst College and earned a master’s from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. When not writing, she runs a management consultancy serving non-profit organizations. Prior to starting her own firm, she worked as an international trade negotiator in the executive branch of the US government, a corporate executive in the aerospace industry and a senior administrator at a private college. She lives in West Hartford, Connecticut, with her husband and high school sweetheart, Joe, and a mini-goldendoodle.
April 22, 2012
Have you ever read a book that just seemed to be the "right book at the right time" sort of read? Well, this was one for me. I haven't experienced the excruciating pain of watching a parent suffer from a terminal illness or live with the knowledge that at some point in time my parent was going to die. But my mother had to go through all of that with her own mother and father. I have friends who just recently lost a parent to a terminal illness, one just diagnosed with cancer, and I have friends who are still learning how to live with their grief from the sudden death of a loved one. So, the reason this book came into my life at the "perfect" time is because I was supposed to read this one and then buy a copy for my mom. I was supposed to read this book and share a poignant poem about loss with a co-worker who lost her husband two years ago this month. I was supposed to read this book and pass it on to a friend whose father passed a few months ago. This is how Linda's story touched me. I connected with her immediately and her love for her parents just jumped off the pages. I liked how she told her story with the help of emails that she saved. Some of the emails were from her to her mother, father, siblings, and various other people. Other emails were from her mother, siblings, and people she met during her mother's year-long battle. Many will think that this story is too sad to read, but I tell you that it is NOT! Linda's mother loved life. This book is a testament to her big heart, her ability to smile and laugh her way through the pain, and to leave a legacy of love so big that you can only admire her determination to live each day of her life. This book may make you cry, but it's all good....really it is.
Recommend? Absolutely. If you have lost a loved one from a terminal illness, accident, natural causes, or whatever the circumstances, you may find some comfort and solace with this book. I'm sure her experience will resonate with you. Linda's mother loved poetry and there are many pieces shared in this book. I've made copies of the ones that touched me and have made a point to purchase Good Poems by Garrison Keillor because it calls to me. This is the type of book that you will read in a day, highlight those aha moments, write down the poems in a journal, make notes all over the pages, and more than likely buy another copy for a family member, friend, or someone you know who may need some help dealing with their pain from the death of a loved one.
Recommend? Absolutely. If you have lost a loved one from a terminal illness, accident, natural causes, or whatever the circumstances, you may find some comfort and solace with this book. I'm sure her experience will resonate with you. Linda's mother loved poetry and there are many pieces shared in this book. I've made copies of the ones that touched me and have made a point to purchase Good Poems by Garrison Keillor because it calls to me. This is the type of book that you will read in a day, highlight those aha moments, write down the poems in a journal, make notes all over the pages, and more than likely buy another copy for a family member, friend, or someone you know who may need some help dealing with their pain from the death of a loved one.
March 17, 2012
A heartwrenching story that had me in tears quite a few times, but with a sweet and simple message I am ever thankful that I read it. A woman's story about the last year of her mother's life after she is diagnosed with terminal stage IV cancer - this book is more than just journaling the last days of her mother's life, but a helpful guide to those who may be experiencing the same last days of a loved one.
As a young woman, my mother is still fit and very active, at times more active than me! She attends book signings with me and often comes and spends weekends shopping and just spending time with me. She is an active grandparent to a toddler and loves to go to the gym with my little sister. I am not near this time in my mom's life, but maybe this was the perfect time for me to read this book. It made me stop and appreciate what moment I am in with my mom, but to store away some helpful tips for what the future could hold with me, my sister and our parents.
I would recommend this book to women my age who may not be on the cusp of dealing with a parent death, but can absorb the tips of living each day while the idea of death isn't in the back of our minds.
As a young woman, my mother is still fit and very active, at times more active than me! She attends book signings with me and often comes and spends weekends shopping and just spending time with me. She is an active grandparent to a toddler and loves to go to the gym with my little sister. I am not near this time in my mom's life, but maybe this was the perfect time for me to read this book. It made me stop and appreciate what moment I am in with my mom, but to store away some helpful tips for what the future could hold with me, my sister and our parents.
I would recommend this book to women my age who may not be on the cusp of dealing with a parent death, but can absorb the tips of living each day while the idea of death isn't in the back of our minds.
May 14, 2013
Read my full review: http://bit.ly/1an5XcL
My opinion: I read this book as a former social worker in the long term care industry and a person who has made the same journey as Ms. Campanella.
I was shocked how much this book touched me. I was frequently taken back to the loss of my own father. The author masterfully blended the emotional impact of death with the practical daily care of caring for the dying family member. This would be a definite positive read for those with a loved one in hospice care or counselors assisting them with the journey.
Ms. Campanella offers the reader a voyeuristic view of saying goodbye to a parent while savoring the time left. All which are just wrapped up in the day to day aspects that are sometimes difficult to deal with. I am sure that there were moments of this book that would be incredibly difficult to write, as I know as the reader I could feel the author's pain. But I feel that this book was cathartic to the writer as well as the reader.
My opinion: I read this book as a former social worker in the long term care industry and a person who has made the same journey as Ms. Campanella.
I was shocked how much this book touched me. I was frequently taken back to the loss of my own father. The author masterfully blended the emotional impact of death with the practical daily care of caring for the dying family member. This would be a definite positive read for those with a loved one in hospice care or counselors assisting them with the journey.
Ms. Campanella offers the reader a voyeuristic view of saying goodbye to a parent while savoring the time left. All which are just wrapped up in the day to day aspects that are sometimes difficult to deal with. I am sure that there were moments of this book that would be incredibly difficult to write, as I know as the reader I could feel the author's pain. But I feel that this book was cathartic to the writer as well as the reader.
Want to Read
May 2, 2012Having lost my mum to malignant melanoma a few years ago I'd love to read this memoir
September 18, 2015
Beautiful! Hits close to home when dealing with an aggressive illness.
March 3, 2018
Goodreads giveaway
Want to Read
March 2, 2018I received this book for free from the author/publisher in response for an honest review of the book. I have not had the opportunity to read this book at this time. I will add my review of this book once I have read the book. Thank k you for allowing me the optometrist review your work. I look forward to reading this book.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews