Given Time: a mother-daughter cancer memoir

Given Time is a memoir in poetry about the breast cancer of Christine Beck's mother and her own recent diagnosis. These poems juxtapose loss and hope, then and now, and two women-mother and daughter-as they twine their lives together, much like the trunks of the olive trees painted by Van Gogh. This collection resounds with the awareness that we all offer gifts to those we love. Some we recognize at the time if we're lucky. Some we don't see until we are far apart. Christine Beck and her mother live in these pages as the vibrant spirits they were and continue to be. Like yarn carried on the underside of an intricate knitted pattern, they are "linked by strands of pink." Read more