An anxious writer braves the verdict of an austere IRS auditor. A corpse reveals our common humanity. A lonely old lady shares her bittersweet last hours. Fall leaves fall, dogs bounds, cats stroll through these lively selections from Patsy Garlan's 60-year writing career. In pithy poems, evocative stories, and telling essays, Garlan's light touch draws the reader of The Thing Is into a world all human beings share and create. Love, loss, birth, death, and the hereafter, are among her wide-ranging themes. She writes of coming to terms with the daunting computer, or succumbing to the charms of the ever-present cellphone, of reveling in the joys and challenges of the natural world.And on every page of The Thing Is, what shines through is the celebration of life.