When we use the word usher, it usually refers to a person who guides theater going patrons to their seats.

Not in this case. In this context, we find that author Clover Brooks is writing about the people she ushers peacefully though their last days, collecting their final words into three notebooks: ADVICE, CONFESSIONS and REGRETS.

This is how goodreads describes The Collected Regrets of Clover, by Mikki Brammer …

From the day she watched her kindergarten teacher drop dead during a dramatic telling of Peter Rabbit , Clover Brooks has felt a stronger connection with the dying than she has with the living. After the beloved grandfather who raised her dies alone while she is traveling, Clover becomes a death doula in New York City, dedicating her life to ushering people peacefully through their end-of-life process.

Clover spends so much time with the dying that she has no life of her own, until the final wishes of a feisty old woman send Clover on a road trip to uncover a forgotten love story—and perhaps, her own happy ending. As she finds herself struggling to navigate the uncharted roads of romance and friendship, Clover is forced to examine what she really wants, and whether she’ll have the courage to go after it.

Probing, clever, and hopeful, The Collected Regrets of Clover turns the normally taboo subject of death into a reason to celebrate life.

This book is indeed a good read, providing insights into the fascinating world of the death doula, of which there were many in years past. It is a role that is making a comeback, albeit in a professional sense. Though there are many thousands of unpaid, home based death doulas who don’t give themselves that title, but do it anyway, out of the goodness of their hearts. They are fulfilling a task that has to some extent been industrialised / commerialised by nursing homes and other institutions, in keeping with the out-sourcing of what used to be normal domestic family care – right until those final days.

This book would be an ideal title for a book club, where members could relate their own experiences, adding to the rich tapestry of knowledge that has been swept under the carpet – considered taboo, held in denial in the false belief if we put of thinking about it long enough it will go away. But there ain’t no such as place as away, and delay does us no good, not now, not ever.