On Monday, April 29 at 6:00 p.m., the Kennebunk Free Library will host author Roy Smoot as he discusses his book It All Belongs, written with his late wife Judy Smoot.

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 and Roy Smoot met in college at Ohio State University, and were married following graduation. Then they lived and loved for the next four decades in Georgia, Ohio, Florida and Maine. Roy enjoyed a successful banking career. Judy served as a hospice volunteer for 15 years, as a Welstreams spiritual director, as an Expressive Arts Florida Institute certified expressive arts retreat leader. She created a nonprofit to support people living with chronic diagnoses. Later in life, they made their home at "Sunrise Ridge", their cottage and retreat center in the beautiful hills of southeast Ohio.