A poet of the personal, Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas' book In the Making of Goodbyes takes us to the land of the heart, a transformative journey where in looking at the difficult turns of events in a life, we are tutored in humility, grace, and tenderness...Her imagery and emotion uplift and fortify. There's a flow to these poems and once in the current, you submit willingly, her voice so intimate that it feels as if she is speaking to you and only you: "Even now as you visit me in dreams, / I stroke the outline of an unseen being/ and hear the hymns of angels." To Grellas, relationship is everything-to nature, loved ones, the self. Her poems acknowledge our vulnerability as humans yet demand that we own up to the strength we have to embrace whatever life brings us. Wendy Patrice Williams, author of In Chaparral, Life on the Georgetown Divide, California