Little Matches: A Memoir of Grief and Light

Little Matches: A Memoir of Grief and Light

By Maryanne O’Hara

Released April 20, 2021

When their only child was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis (CF) at the age of two, Maryanne O’Hara and her husband were told that Caitlin could live a long life or be dead in a matter of months. Thirty-one years later, Caitlin lost her battle with this devastating disease following an excruciating two-year wait on the transplant list and a last-minute race to locate a pair of healthy lungs. The sudden spiral of events left Maryanne in an existential crisis, searching to find an answer to the eternal question: Why we are here? During her final years, Caitlin had become a source of wisdom and comfort for her mother—the partner with whom she shared a deep spiritual quest to understand what it meant to have a soul. After Caitlin’s passing, Maryanne began to notice signs—poignant, persistent synchronicities that seemed to lean toward proof of Caitlin’s enduring presence.

Maryanne O’Hara is the author of the novel Cascade. Little Matches is based on 9LivesNotes.com, a blog that Maryanne kept while her daughter, Caitlin, waited for a lung transplant. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts.