Scattering Ashes
A Memoir of Letting Go
-
- 10,99 €
-
- 10,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
When her alcoholic and emotionally abusive mother’s health declines, Joan Rough invites her to move in with her. Rough longs to be the “good daughter,” helping her narcissistic mother face the reality of her coming death. But when repressed memories of childhood abuse by her mother arise, Rough is filled with deep resentment and hatred toward the woman who birthed her, and her dream of mending their tattered relationship shatters. Seven years later, when her mother dies, she is left with a plastic bag of her mother’s ashes and a diagnosis of PTSD. What will she do with them?
Courageous and unflinchingly honest, Scattering Ashes is a powerful chronicle of letting go of a loved one, a painful past, and fear―a journey that will bring hope to others who grapple with the pain and repercussions of abuse.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this blistering account, Rough, an artist and writer, depicts the many difficulties of supporting an elderly abusive parent. In 2001, she invites her ailing, alcoholic mother to move into her Virginia home. Their proximity opens many old wounds in their fraught relationship and forces Rough to confront painful memories of the physical and emotional abuse her parents inflicted on her when she was a child. Rough is unsparing about her complicated feelings of love, hatred, and guilt for her mother, whose more traumatic early home life she gradually learns about, and bravely honest as she examines her struggles to overcome a long-held identification as a victim. In her final years, Rough's mother is diagnosed with stage four cancer. The pain medication, like alcohol, brings out vicious rages that she focuses on her daughter. Rough has two younger brothers, but they leave her in charge of their mother's doctor appointments, medications, hospitalizations, and hospice. Only following her mother's death in 2008 is Rough now in her 60s really able to begin a recovery. She initially resists a diagnosis of PTSD but realizes she needs to change long-held patterns and behaviors; trying to find forgiveness for two very damaged parents, she concludes they did the best they could. This is a moving narrative, and one that will ultimately serve a useful guide for families and their caretakers.
