before you go

"I experienced tears streaming down my cheeks, cracked-open laughter, and a wildly expanding heart while reading this book. before you go: an Offering is a luminous offering-part poetry, part memory, part prayer, and part meditation - on what it means to love through time, across lineages, and while holding the pain and possibility of healing our deepest wounds. With fierce tenderness and holy invocations, Sharon Bridgforth invites us into the sacred terrain of mourning, spirit, and courageous introspection. This work doesn't just tell a story-it opens a portal. A portal to our own capacity for transformation and Love - if and when we choose to walk toward it. I know that I will be walking with this book for a long, long time."-Erin Walsh, Co-founder of Spark & Stitch Institute, author, and speaker

"Anticipating or grieving the loss of a parent can be overwhelming. This book offers a map for the soul through the complex process of forgiveness and acceptance that is possible when our elders are at the end of their life. Part memoir, part guidebook, this work invites you to engage with your grief, one page, one prompt, one memory, one queer prayer at a time. Sharon's courageous introspection and honest naming of difficult truths helps us see that our hardships can be our teachers and our pain can open us up to infinite love."-Diver Van Avery, Therapist and Public Artist