Against my better judgment, I read this book. It was written up in the New York Times and truly was a well written memoir. One often wonders how true to form memoirs are and (for the author's sake) I hope some of it was made up. Unfortunately, Robin Romm's experience of her mother's cancer diagnosis when she was age 19 and the nine year battle that followed hit home for me. She might has well have written about the last nine years of my own life, my memoir.
Robin felt a bitterness towards hospice that I did not experience but the rawness of her feelings struck a chord. She remembers the way her mother's piercing looks went right through her as if her mom were staring at something beyond. She talks about what it was like to be around so many healthy people in their twenties, happy and lucky, while her entire world was falling apart. She describes how every moment has an intensity to it: "I would shake my head and feel the hurt in my throat become my throat, until even my skin radiated with pain." Robin feels a deep kinship with her mother and recognizes that her mom is the only person who will ever love her selflessly. With her loss, Robin is a changed person.
I am so thankful for the honesty and courage it took to write this memoir. If anyone wants to know what it felt like for me to lose my mom, they need simply to read this book. The experience was profound and indescribable - except that Robin Romm just described it for the world to know and understand.
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