Vagabond and spiritual seeker, wife and mother and former labor organizer, Zilla Daniel led a full and varied life. But in the fall of 1988, troubled with the onset of Alzheimer's, she comes to Portland, Oregon, to live with her son and his wife. Evolving slowly into the unfamiliar, she watches the dogwood outside their kitchen window, reads poetry, asks and re-asks the names of birds.

Uneasy in his role as caregiver, and coping with his own depression, John Daniel struggles with guilt, embarrassment, and anger over his mother's transformation. As she loses her memory, Daniel delves into his own, uncovering both the root of his depression and the medicine for its cure in fragmented, long-dormant recollections of his childhood and youth.

Mother and son journey through difficult and mysterious terrain, ultimately divining a path to each other. "Whatever she recognized, whatever she perceived, whatever she sensed, she faced the good world she had loved... The world flowed in through her window, flowed into her open eyes whatever they saw, even as she flowed forth to join the world from the personhood of her many days.".

Combining graceful prose with the tenacity of a lifelong seeker, John Daniel pays tribute to the life of a remarkable woman and depicts the burdens and unexpected blessings of caring for her. In the midst of daily tension and occasional despair, Daniel comprehends - then shares with us - Zilla's "deep smile of the spirit."