In an effort to forget his dead wife, an old man drowning in his memories decides, with the help of a young scavenger, to get rid of all the items of the home he formed with her.
A recent widow invites her husband's troubled best friend to live with her and her two children. As he gradually turns his life around, he helps the family cope and confront their loss.
A unique friendship develops when a little girl and her dying mother inherit a cook - Mr. Church. What begins as an arrangement that should only last six months, instead spans fifteen years.