It All Belongs: Love, Loss, & Learning to Live Again

Winner of 2024 Nautilus Book Award, Silver medal, Death & Dying, Grief & Loss

Winner of 2024 Independent Publishers Book Awards Gold medal, Outstanding Book Award, “Most Original Concept”

Winner of 2024 Independent Publishers Book Awards Silver Medal, Cover Design

“This is an intimate book, revealing the journey of the heart from the inside. It is also a book of invitations, calling us to press against the edges of our lives through creativity and meditation, and discover what brings us alive. I recommend it for anyone looking for a wise companion who is willing to be vulnerable, to help us embrace our own humanity.” — Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE, online Abbess of Abbey of the Arts and author of over 20 books on contemplative practice and creative expression.

Kirkus Reviews: "Get It!"

"An insightful and touching testament to enduring love."

Read Full Review

NPR Troy Public Radio

"What a stunning book! I couldn't believe your depth of care you chose in presenting the grief journey, . . Thank you for sharing what you've learned with people who need help in discerning their way forward. No one really likes grappling with the subject of grief until it's thrust upon them. " — Carolyn Hutcheson, Host/Producer; Troy Public Radio

Grief Share Facilitator

"With the shock of loss, it's hard to understand how the world around us can keep going when our world has suddenly stopped. I'm so glad for your commitment to go beyond your grief in order to help others." — Carolyn Hutcheson, Former Grief Share Facilitator

Cancer Survivor

"It All Belongs is meant to be read, simmered like a cup of hot tea and as the words sink in so does the warmth of love you both had for each other ... Judy was meant to go through this training so she could write in her journals a roadmap for others traveling a similar path." —Karen Arel, Retired Chamber of Commerce President, Cancer Survivor

Nautilus Book Award, "Better Books for a Better World"

Winner of 2024 Nautilus Book Award Silver medal in the Death & Dying, Grief & Loss category.

Hospice of Southern Maine

"I talked with my colleagues. We want to say, again, how truly amazing your book is as a resource to people as they travel their grief journey. — Ms. Daryl Cady, CEO, Hospice of Southern Maine

Winner of Two Independent Publishers Book Awards

Winner of 2024 Independent Book Publishers (IPPY) Awards: Gold Medal, Outstanding Book Award for "Most Original Concept" and Silver Medal for cover design.

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It All Belongs: Love, Loss & Learning to Live Again

What can you do when you're facing the end of your life—or the life of someone you love?

In this exquisite dual narrative laced with expressive art, poetry, journaling, and hands-on help, It All Belongs offers a unique pairing of perspectives to actively model spiritual tools and practices helpful for navigating life’s inevitable realities and unwanted journeys — while embracing the love, beauty, light, and joy in all our life’s moments.

For Judy Smoot, a devastating terminal Glioblastoma Multiforme diagnosis means putting the spiritual practices she has taught so many others to the ultimate, personal test. As an artist, spiritual director, expressive arts teacher, retreat facilitator, and innovator of a non-profit organization supporting people with chronic disease, Judy shows us what it looks like to live fully into our own mortality by living fully into hers. Actively modeling spiritual and expressive arts practices she taught to so many others, Judy lives into her own mortal battle in a way that prompts a friend’s observation, “Judy taught us how to live . . . and how to die.”

But that’s only half the story.

Following Judy’s death, It All Belongs then invites its readers to journey with Roy, Judy’s husband of nearly 40 years, as he struggles to embrace the twin realities of love and grief. With extraordinary vulnerability, Roy offers a rare window into his struggle to learn the rhythms of this bittersweet dance. From the raw angst of navigating immediate day-to-day realities, to deep introspection during a long road trip out west, to culminating awareness on a spiritual quest in Iona, Scotland, Roy models the journey through unthinkable darkness to emerging triumphant into a full and abundant life.

Woven into both sides of this honest, beautiful, heartbreaking, and awe-inspiring narrative, readers will discover spiritual tools and practices to equip them and their loved ones for their own inevitable end-of-life realities. In this unique pairing of perspectives laced with exquisite art, poetry, and journaling, It All Belongs brings hands-on help for navigating any unwanted life journey to embrace the amazing love, beauty, light, and joy tucked within even our most tragic experiences.

JUDY & ROY met in college at Ohio State, were married following graduation, and for the next four decades lived and loved in Georgia, Florida, Ohio, and Maine.

Roy enjoyed a successful banking career; Judy served as a Wellstreams spiritual director, a Dominican Associate, and an Expressive Arts Florida Institute (EAFI) graduate. Judy established Always We Begin Again (AWBA), a non-profit organization to support people with chronic illness. Later in life they made their home at “Sunrise Ridge,” their cottage and retreat center renovated and created in the breathtaking beauty of Ohio’s Hocking Hills.

MELINDA FOLSE is a writer, editor, and collaborator on a mission to tell stories that make a difference. She believes this story will strike a meaningful chord in every life it touches. It All Belongs is her eighth book, joining Grandmaster, Dream Catcher, and Lessons Well Learned as her favorite explorations of lives and passions well lived. She lives in Fort Worth, Texas.

What our readers are saying

This book will help anyone go through one of the most stressfull events of life: The loss of a spouse. It is a toughing thought provoking story about living, dying and surviving without your most cherished friend. What a privilege to read the personal thoughts of Judy and Roy as they navigated through this difficult experience. “It All Belongs” should be required reading for spiritual counselors, grief counselors, Hospice personnel, ministers, priest and anyone faced with a stressful life experience. I highly recommend it.

This book is beautiful inside and out. Each page contains some type of artwork, whether it is Judy’s personal creations or the work of the book printer. The pages are printed on high quality paper with an attached ribbon book mark to hold the reader’s place while one ponders the message in Judy and Roy’s words or writes their own notes in the provided spaces. The book takes the reader through the journey of Judy and Roy’s love story in their own words and innermost thoughts as they tackled Judy’s cancer diagnosis, her death and Roy’s struggle to go on living without her. I highly recommend this book for anybody going through their own life struggle as you will laugh and cry while finding inspiration and the tools to face life with a new-found courage.

I hesitated to start – I wish I had not
The recent death of a loved one caused me to delay reading this inspiring book. I was too raw – it was too soon – How I wish I had waited. Reading the beautiful words of one who traveled the path toward the end of a loved one gave me, oddly, peace. I will reread this book. And again.

Worth the Read!
When I first picked up the book to read it, I sat with a cup of hot tea and these words came to me: “It All Belongs is meant to be read, simmered like a cup of hot tea and as the words on the page touched my heart, and I felt the warmth of love Roy and Judy had for each other. What Judy wrote in in her journals became a roadmap for others traveling a similar path.” If you are struggling with loss, then this book is for you. I took my time reading the book and each time I felt the same way…it truly is a roadmap and those who need it should surely read it.

“An insightful and touching testament to enduring love.”

In this spiritual healing guide, the husband of an artist and therapist who died of brain cancer showcases her drawings and writings, as well as his own journal entries and poems.