Lamott focuses on the benefits of writing outside of publication. She tells the story of how she wrote a novel that fictionalized the experience of her father’s battle with terminal cancer. He was able to read all of it before he passed, and he appreciated its dark humor, and this meant more to Lamott than any positive review. When the book—Hard Laughter, Lamott’s debut—was published, it received some harsh reviews, but she didn’t mind because her father’s happiness was what she was seeking.

Later, as Lamott’s close friend Pammy was dying of breast cancer, she again wrote a book wrote as both a gift to her loved one and a way to cope with the difficult emotions she herself was feeling. Again, she was able to complete the manuscript about the person she loved before they passed. Books are a way to assure people that some part of them will continue on after they die. Lamott also wrote about the baby of her friends who died at five months old and, with their permission, read her piece on a radio show.

This piece is excerpted in Bird by Bird. In the excerpt, the baby is the first dead person Lamott’s son Sam has ever seen.