Dying is a very difficult thing to do.

The Monk’s Widow is about living and dying in a very intense fifty-year marriage. David Maguire and I should not have gotten married, but we could not leave each other, could not separate. David had been a monk, one of the five young men in An Infinity of Little Hours, and he struggled to sever his monk identity, remaining ambivalent about God versus me. His unexpected death sentence was our last chance to resolve our relationship, to find peace.

We had sparred about the meaning of life. Now, we sparred about the meaning of death, while slogging through dying for twenty-six months. We tried to hold on to what cannot be held, very gradually letting go piece by piece, inch by inch.

​The Monk’s Widow is about loss, grief, fear, and terror of the unknown, about love and anguish. It took the strength of both of us to separate. Feeling totally hopeless, incompetent, and helpless, I birthed David into death. The Monk’s Widow is a love story disguised as a brutally honest death memoir.

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​Nancy Klein Maguire’s The Monk's Widow takes readers on a brave and rewarding journey. Using journals and recordings made while she and her husband David faced the end of his life, Maguire makes sense of love, intimacy, and death. The Monk's Widow shows two people facing the finitude of life in an intimate relationship and, ultimately, finding their own brave form of transcendence.

Michael Witmore
Director, Folger Shakespeare Library

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The singularity, honesty and vulnerability of The Monk’s Widow creates an authenticity that speaks for itself. It can’t be faked. It’s either real and true, or it isn’t. And so, through its intimate truth-telling, the reach of The Monk’s Widow is deep and wide, bordering on universal. This is beautiful. 

Dr. Joan Gibson
Bioethicist

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Told from a voice filled with vulnerable strength, The Monk’s Widow demonstrates that love stories do not need to fit into a perfect mold in order to be profound and true.

Rev. Jana Troutman Miller
​Chaplain

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The Monk’s Widow grasped me and startled me. This lady I’ve never met has now written two books. They are so relatable they provide me with the telling of my own story, which I have felt totally untellable. As someone who can identify with your husband’s life journey, your journey with him has provided invaluable insights into my own relationships and their impact on others. You’ve no idea how much you have helped me. When I see An Infinity of Little Hours on my shelf, I feel like I’m understood. A rare thing.

 A political activist
 Wales, UK

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​Your new book is in many ways amazing. As emotionally honest as anything I’ve read that looks at the act of dying.

Clive Priddle
Editor, Public Affairs

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​The Monk’s Widow is that rarest of things, a work that has the ability to change how the reader may choose to navigate the bridge to death and ultimately how to act during the process of dying.

Jason Harrington
Benedictine Oblate

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​  ​Author Nancy Klein Maguire’s love story about her fifty-year marriage: The Monk’s Widow, a memoir of a Resilient Love and Intimate Death is a fascinating and honest depiction of a marriage that has weathered many challenges because of the strong-willed and intelligent couple involved... Nancy Klein Maguire is an incredibly talented writer and I hope she follows up this book with one on her next chapter in life

 Betty Roselle
Online magazine, Culture Vulture

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The Monk’s Widow is a very powerful book. Thank you for letting me read it. David told you “Do something that can’t be done – then you have a chance of getting it right.” You have certainly done that, at least twice. First with helping David die, and second with this book.

 Amanda Helman Gordon
author

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 Our Life

Excerpts

Chapter 1
I found it difficult to maintain a sense of identity being married to an ex-monk. What was our relationship? Not father, not brother, not boyfriend, not quite husband. A monkmate? Not exactly a wife, a girlfriend? Certainly not a mother. What does married mean? Before marrying my ex-monk, I had a sense of identity: spinster, professional and member of a multi-generational family, Catholic. After marrying my ex-monk, I frantically looked around for a social identity that suited my ex-monk husband. I flipped around for five or six years. Then finally, I gave up getting the approval of an ex-monk and decided to build my own separate identity.

Chapter 3
I was too terrified to sleep. I kept my cell phone next to me on the bed. The next morning, Tuesday, when I returned to the SICU, machines filled David’s cubicle—so many I could barely find space for myself. I saw a dead David. What looked like white felt, rolls of surgical gauze, covered and kept in place the tubes and needles which were attached to the machines in his room. The only skin visible was his forehead, and that was charcoal gray. His eyes were closed and sunken. Machines had taken over his body. The only sign of life was a quarter inch of dark brown urine, an image burned into my brain. I maneuvered around the machines so that I could hold his hand.

Chapter 13
When the congregation was in place, I went down to the nave of the church, hugging all the waiting pallbearers, and braced myself for the long walk down the aisle. As I walked into the Church of the Gesu behind David’s coffin, the organist was playing Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, on the magnificent old organ. Tears were coming down my face, tears of grief, fear, confusion but what I really felt was pride. Proud that David and I had done what even we doubted we could do. Also, oddly, I felt like a bride. We had stayed the course for twenty-six months, stayed together without faltering, without looking back, steady in our decision.

Reader Responses


The Monk’s Widow is not just a book about a terminal illness, it is about love and marriage. With almost brutal truthfulness, Nancy Klein Maguire documents the apparent incompatibility of her husband and herself, charting their Herculean attempt to bind together widely differing beliefs and temperaments. The reader can sense her almost invincible reaching out. She persists in hoping that wholeness is being attained, despite the anguished path.
Nachman Davies, Jewish Contemplative
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This is a beautifully written and moving account of a shared journey through the borderland of the undiscovered country.  It should be read by all those who must confront the process of dying, whether as family members, caregivers, or medical professionals.
Lee F. Elliott, DO

I liked the first chapter with the vivid description of your different characters, sacred. I met  Dom Philip in your description exactly! Although very witty remarks relieved the reading, I found it very hard to read the following chapters with the description of  your heavy health problems and David’s time in the SICU. Thank you for the present of your book!
Hans Hassemer, Retired Physician, and Carthusian of the 1960s

A Monk’s Widow is a very powerful book.  Thank you for letting me read it. David told you “Do something that can’t be done – then you have a chance of getting it right.” You have certainly done that, at least twice.  First with helping David die, and second with this book.
Amanda Helman Gordon, Author

Wow. You did a really good job of capturing time and what I perceived as a painfully slow slog of dealing with uncharted territory. You captured it so well that I was having a physical reaction while reading it. Definitely not an easy read, but I couldn't stop reading it. Thanks for sharing it.
D. Baumstark, PT
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​Maguire sheds light on the acts of death, dying, medical confusion and eventually loneliness. With our aging population growing, more and more people  will face these problems but Maguire’s narrative will help them navigate a complex and emotional journey.
Gene Croisant, Retired CEO

It’s a triumph. I sat down to read a few chapters and couldn’t stop. I read all the way through. Your writing is as clear as a bell. The introduction particularly had me hooked - not because it’s about death, but because it’s about life and it’s most sacred partnership, marriage. As a young person who just got married, I can tell you that death isn’t on my mind (yet). But marriage is a total enigma - only the two people who are “in it” can understand the depths and layers that compound over the years. The introduction particularly had me hooked - not because it’s about death, but because it’s about life and its most sacred partnership, marriage. As a young person who just got married, I can tell you that death isn’t on my mind (yet). But marriage is a total enigma - only the two people who are “in it” can understand the depths and layers that compound over the years. ​Emily Miller, Entrepreneur

When I read The Monk’s Widow, I was amazed that Maguire is able to articulate her authentic feelings during the 26 months of David’s dying. When I consider my husband’s illness and death, I am able to give a generalized statement of my feelings, but not the specific authentic feelings. Nancy’s relationship to David was so concentrated that there was no room for attention to any other subject.
Beatrice Belda Pronley, Widow

I’m still reading. I had to put it down for a bit (I was staying up too late reading and I desperately needed sleep.) But I picked it back up this weekend and am going strong. My only comment so far is that I appreciate how raw and emotional it is. And, even though our experiences and relationships with death are different, it makes me feel seen. 
M. Silverman, Senior Research Librarian

I got about halfway through but was so emotionally overwhelmed, that I had to stop, and start over again.
A. Ribstein, Widow

An unflinching and intimate look at the evolution of a relationship forged through fifty years of marriage and 26 months of dying. When Maguire's husband, David, receives a diagnosis of a terminal illness, the two commit to keeping a careful record of what each of them was going through. Their observations are raw and poignant, sometimes wryly funny, and always honest. This is compelling reading for anyone who has attended a loved one's death and wondered what they might be thinking. And it reminds us that not only is every life and every relationship unique, but so is every death.
C. Smith, author

Told from a voice filled with vulnerable strength, The Monk’s Widow demonstrates that love stories do not need to fit into a perfect mold in order to be profound and true.
Rev. Jana Troutman Miller, Episcopalian Chaplain

Some might compare The Monk’s Widow to Didion's Year of Magical Thinking, but this an intense book him him him. Dr. Maguire shows us the path she walked with David her husband as he slowly died from cancer. This was hard for me to read as I have been primary care giver to my mom. I see similarities between what we live and what Dr. Maguire shows here as she and her husband tell each other good-bye: I can see what awaits us. Her painful work here is not at all in vain as it compels me to anticipate what will happen as she herself responded to what she had no choice but to accept. I am thankful she struggled and fought to publish this account because it may serve you when you do that work to say good-bye to a loved one. Read it now if you and everyone is fine and healthy then read it again when that loved one starts the walk to dying. Read for them and yourself.
Henri Andre Fourroux III

Nancy Klein Maguire sheds light on the acts of death, dying, medical confusion and eventually loneliness. With our aging population growing, more and more people  will face these problems, but Maguire’s narrative will help them navigate a complex and emotional journey.
Gene Croisant, retired CEO

This remarkable book documents in frank language the exploration and resolution of a complicated and sometimes challenging fifty year marriage of two people deeply in love, by a terminal illness taking place over a painful but rewarding two year period. It is gripping, at times compelling and always difficult to put down.
Chuck Becker, businessman

The Monk’s Widow should be required reading for anyone wanting to sustain a relationship till death. Kids in high school are infatuated, but they should understand the enormity of commitment required to go through an entire lifetime of Love and Devotion to another. This book made me weep out loud and forced me to understand what these remaining years of marriage mean to the one left behind. The author has pried open the subject matter of death and everyone can and should learn from this book.
Frances Palladino

You did a really good job of capturing time and what I perceived as a painfully slow slog of dealing with uncharted territory. You captured it so well that I was having a physical reaction while reading it. Definitely not an easy read, but I couldn't stop reading it. Thanks for sharing it.
Daniel Baumstark PhD, PT

The Monk’s Widow is so honest, so painful, and yet so positive that I have experienced the difficulties of your immense pain and joy at David’s prolonged passing. Congratulations on an extremely thought-provoking and medically correct masterpiece.
Alan Goldberg MD PhD

The Monk’s Widow is an engrossing memoir about love and death and a complicated but enduring relationship. It is also about the dying person's caregiver. The stark honesty, vivid details, and at times poignancy make for an arresting read. Certainly one of the top ten books I have ever read. No surprise coming from the author of an absorbing book about the intense devotion that undergirds a couple as they struggle together during a long journey through a fatal illness. It is beautifully written, full of wit and insight driven by a commitment to intimacy and truth-telling on the part of Dr. Nancy Maguire, the author. the reader confronts the mystery of death which so often social convention will not address.
Madeleine W.

This is an extraordinary story of two extraordinary people facing the inescapable reality of the end of life. The challenges and risks and intimacy were so clearly and skillfully presented in graphic and believable terms. The story is one we can all relate to in one way or another. While I would like to have heard David’s version, I believe it was faithfully reflected by Nancy. We can all learn so much by their story, that death is only the end of physical love.
Ray Wicklander, businessman

There is something of value to be gleaned by anyone who reads The Monks Widow. While the book focuses on the journey that Nancy and David took (and continue to take) it is reflective of the emotional complexities and questions that define our humanity.
Jason Haggerty, a Benedictine oblate, Ireland

Even though we all know it is inevitable, death is a difficult subject for each of us and the people who care most about us. Dave Maguire received what turned out to be a twenty-six month death sentence in 2013. This book is the story of that period and its impact both on Dave and his wife of 50 years, Nancy. Many people would try to manage this problem by denying its existence. Dave and Nancy took the opposite approach, aggressively attacking it, studying and discussing both the problem and its impact on each of them and their relationship.
Jesse Elliott, businessman

Years ago I was captivated with An Infinity of Little Hours Now, I am equally captivated with its sequel, The Monk's Widow. The two books could not be more different in subject matter-the chronicling of the world's most austere monastic order vs. coping with the death of a spouse. But they are identical given the thoroughness and the meticulous care Nancy Klein Maguire brings to each book. The Monk's Widow would help anyone caring for the terminally ill whether a spouse, other relation, or a non-family member.
Regina L. Marchand, book reviewer

 Nancy Klein Maguire knocked it out of the ballpark with An Infinity of Little Hours, her book about Carthusian monks and their austere monastic order. Her sequel, The Monk’s Widow, is even more impressive. Using her same skills of detailed observation and objectivity she has created a field guide for those accompanying a loved one on the journey that we will all take. She was essentially the midwife to her husband’s death. The account of their experience is riveting.
D. Ressa, IT

Nancy Klein Maguire has been a friend of mine for many years.  I am impressed with her ability to share  her response to David's difficult months prior to his death. When Nancy has shared her struggles during David's suffering prior to his death, Nancy has given us, the readers, a gift. We are grateful for the gift we have been  given in this story.
Beatrice Belda Pronley, widow

The Monk’s Widow is a beautiful glimpse into the life and challenges to sustain a relationship till the end. it provides a perspective on the great commitment required to go through an entire lifetime of Love and Devotion to another. as my wife and I embark on 29 years of marriage I have a better understanding of what these remaining years of marriage mean to those left behind.
Mike Karegeannes, PT businessman

I read The Monk's Widow after reading Nancy Klein Maguire's An Infinity of Little Hours. I found her detailing of her courageous final walk with her husband as another journey toward God. Both were difficult but not without hope although I know many days felt that way. The resilient spirit comes through in Nancy's writing and her description of her relationship with her courageous former monk husband. Saying goodbye and living without those we love changes our world forever, yet hope remains and God remains too!
D. F. Reviewed in Canada on April 10, 2024

The Monk’s Widow is both Nancy and David’s honest and transparent perspectives of how they negotiated with themselves and each other to move their 50-year “sparring” relationship to equanimity and compassion—as much as they could compromise on and still be true to themselves. As an oncology nurse, I am aware of how draining and exhausting caregiving is and how the uncertainty and waiting for death consume families. But it’s this rare glimpse into a couple’s intimate perspectives that give this story richness and depth.
Janice Post-White, RN,PhD, FAAN

The Monk’s Widow: A Memoir of a Resilient Love and Intimate Death is an often excruciating account of their last two years together. Maguire recounts the frustration, anger, and sense of abandonment she experienced in those trying months, with the intent to help other spouses going through similar experiences…. The Monk’s Widow is not an easy book to read: Maguire recounts the minutiae of a close relationship with David under the strain of dire medical diagnoses and frequent health setbacks. Occasionally this reader sought some grander ideas or reflections from Maguire’s experiences. But the point is, I think, having experienced similar decline in a close family member, is that the caregiver has no time or energy for such philosophical or theological ruminations. And that one can be forgiven for having to handle that aspect of life that few of us wish to have to think about—the drawn-out death of a loved one—by dealing exclusively with the crisis at hand.
M.L. Asselin

Once a Monk always a Monk. I lived as a Benedictine for many years and even though I am no longer in a Monastery, I still long and search for God in this life. I guess that is what makes me relate to Dave/Dom Philip. I appreciate how Nancy opened up about the reality of Dave and his journey to God in preparing his death and dying. It’s a raw emotion and it’s something that we all will have to embrace one day. As a former Monastic, it’s something we prepare our life for to say, yes. Yes to God, one last time. It was emotional to walk with Nancy as she learns to navigate the loss of her Dave and relationship to death but to see her become vulnerable was powerful.
Benedictine monk, Amazon

For anyone who has shared the life with an individual battling a terminal illness, the Monk's Widow is a must read, albeit a tough one. Dr. Maguire does not hold back on sharing all details, both bad and good, and accurately depicts the roller coaster of emotions which are brought forth during the long process. While the role of caregiver is often overlooked, Dr. Maguire highlights how hard the role is, and how the caregiver is left raw and susceptible once the loved one passes. She has brought to light how the widow has to continue to be strong, while navigating learning a whole new way of living as an individual rather than a couple. This is a book from which you cannot remain emotionally detached. It draws you in to identify with experiences you have either had, or experiences you fear you will one day have to confront. This book should provide special meaning to the many "baby boomers" who may be enjoying their "golden years," but who must also prepare for the ultimate reality of death. Read it. Buy a copy for a friend. Confront the challenge posed by this book of becoming a more compassionate and empathetic person.
Tom Calo, University teacher
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 This book is an engrossing memoir about love and death and a complicated but enduring relationship. It was a page-turner in a sense, but I found the story so emotional that I had to set it aside for a day before coming back to read it to the end. Very well-written and compelling; highly recommended.
Ann Ribstein

The Monk’s Widow is by far the most raw and relentlessly intense of these widow memoirs. When a cancerous death sentence enters into a relationship between two brilliant minds, a relationship as conflicted as it is deep, these partners set out to record their conversations. The result is a collaboration of sorts… I was deeply moved by Maguire’s honesty about the sinews and gaps in her marriage. This is, ultimately, a deeply human story about love, loss, and legacy.
Heather Diamond, author

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Discussion Questions

What options did David have after we decided to not seek further medical treatment?
What options did I have?
Would you want the extra time that we had? Why?
Would you have continued seeking experimental medical treatment? Why?
Do you approve of medically assisted death?
​Should we have divorced? When?
Would David like this book? What would he have changed in the book?
Would he have wanted you to write it?
Did David find his God?
How aware have you been of people dying alone during Covid 19? How have you reacted to these couples?
​What did you learn about yourself during the pandemic?