Pilgrims: Two Unlikely Friends Unravel the Mystery of Life

"What follows is the true story of an extraordinary ordinary woman. Although it is her story, in the end it will also be yours..." It was autumn when Paul McDermott stood at the doorway to a characterless house that would exert a pull on him years after he closed the door for the final time. He was nervous, and totally unprepared to meet the woman he had agreed to visit. Val, 74 and dying of cancer, lived anonymously in this little house. She, too, was frightened. Her life had taken on a dull uniformity, not unlike her garden: trimmed, fenced in and concreted over where deemed prudent. All that had seemed possible and hopeful had been pruned back or poisoned at the roots. This was not what Val had expected her life to become. Step by step, inch by inch, Val began to redress her past, to face her future, and to take on a clarity and peace that rekindled her humanity and her dignity. And, alongside her, Paul's own perceptions and compromises were challenged in a way he would never have believed when he first arrived at her door. Through trial and error they created something profound and regenerating between them. Full of a surprising warmth, mixed with courage and humour, this remarkable story of the unfolding of an unlikely friendship becomes deeply life-affirming, not only for the two protagonists on their parallel journey - but also for us all.