The Mercy Papers

by Robin Romm

A poignant account of the three weeks before the author's mother's death describes her experiences with such challenges as unruly pets and a questionable hospice nurse to her mother's numerous medications and faith struggles. By the author of The Mother Garden. 40,000 first printing.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Grief, Biography, Biography Memoir, Medical, Audiobook

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Robin Romm is the author of two books, The Mother Garden (stories) and The Mercy Papers (a memoir). The Mercy Papers received the cover review of the New York Times Book Review ("a furious blaze of a book") in January 2009. The Mother Garden was a finalist for the PEN USA prize and the Northern California Independent Bookseller Book of the Year Award. She teaches in the MFA program at New Mexico State.

Reviews

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Keeping this short.....

I listened to the Audiobook... read by the author, Robin Romm

It’s a story about a mother dying and a daughter who loved her.

Towards the end.... there were specifics that made such an impact on me...
It was worth the entire book.

Its raw.. it’s real....and my eyes are open to an idea I’m contemplating about with much seriousness...
However.... it’s personal.... and I feel too exposed at the moment in sharing more
I know...why now? Why THIS book....am I all of a sudden feeling shy....rather guarded?
I just need to protect a pain that shadows me at the moment.

But.... for me.... this book was worth reading.
It sure felt BRUTALLY HONEST....
But....it’s not a ‘comfort’ healer....
Sadness, and anger lingers like particle dust in the air.

[Kelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this one in less than a night. Couldn't put it down. I think some people might think it masochistic, but there's something deeply comforting about reading a story that feels so much like my own story - different details, yet same confusing, wrenching struggle. And in the end, she gives good advice that most people are too afraid to give: 'it will never leave you.' And claims, rightfully so, that there's comfort in that, and there, oddly, is. Beautiful beautiful book. Made me thankful at times that my mother's death played out the way it did (she did with all of us around her and talking to you) but regretting that it played out the way it did (it happened so fast, no time for the myriad conversations I'm still longing to have with her.) And funny to read this book nearly 6 months to the date that she died. Though, I find so many things funny and strange and coincidental these days...

[Cheryl Strayed · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book. Romm is a fabulous writer.

[Kelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written. Interesting but kind of heavy; not a pick-me-up kind of book. Then again, I never expected it to be...still it kind of weighs on my emotions. Gut-wrenching in parts. Very good at conveying what it feels like to lose a loved one. Was hard to read in parts--I relived my own experience in bits and pieces through this book. It was nothing if not accurate.

[Adele Stratton · Rating 2 out of 5]

(2 and a half stars, I guess.) I was annoyed with Romm throughout this short memoir written primarily about the weeks-long period as her mother slowly succumbed to a 9-year battle with breast cancer. I kept reading because I expected Romm would somehow redeem herself. Although she presents her mother as fiercely intelligent, independent and brave, we can hardly say the same about her daughter. I found Romm’s denial, self-absorption and selfishness appalling, especially on the last day of her mother’s life, when she convinces her physician-father to withhold pain medication from a clearly suffering woman, so she maybe-maybe-might have more of her real mother (as opposed to a “foggy, drugged up” one) for a longer time. She writes eloquently but, oh my goodness, a 28-year-old woman should be a little more independent and grounded than what she shows us here (and I feel qualified to speak to this since I lost my own mother to cancer when I was 28.) That 3 years later when she writes the conclusion to this memoir, she expresses no regrets, just more about how hard the loss is for her, well... I have no words.

[Travel Writing · Rating 4 out of 5]

When my brother was dying, one way I had to tether myself was to pretend to be someone watching from the ceiling. What would that person say about what was unfolding in the moment in the house where my brother was struggling for independence when half his body had left the building, where my mom was politely trying to ignore that we needed help- which involved allowing in hospice. Strangers, mind you! And I was driving 7 hours one way to roll joints for my brother while sitting on pickle buckets on the back porch, because my brother wouldn't do drugs in our parents house. Even while he was dying.

It got ugly. Sometimes a polite struggle of wills, sometimes sheer banshee level power struggles involving ego, and pain, and fear, and the terror of watching someone we love leave us so quickly.

In the end, what we were all doing was trying desperately to do the best for my brother and sometimes turning on one another while we did it. Other times we worked together like a well oiled machine of death.

I distinctly remember someone pulling a pan of aptly named funeral potatoes out of the fridge and putting it on the counter. My sister, dad, nieces, and I ate out of the cold tinfoil pan, standing at the counter, while taking turns going and sitting with my brother. We passed the fork on to whoever strolled up.

Death is not fucking pretty. In our culture- we are almost inured to death. So when it comes to roost in our homes- we have very few skills and practice surrounding how to be present while someone we love dies.

Reading The Mercy Papers is like being the person watching from the ceiling.

This story is bone crushingly painful and there are moments you will scream, "WTF are you doing?", but the reality for me is, Robin Romm is brave enough to share her journey of the three weeks before he mother died. She tells it as it is, she doesn't make it glossy and a LifeTime movie. Because death at home is very rarely played out amongst people who have showered everyday.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I pick up a memoir, my intent is to open myself up to another person's experience, not to judge it. I wasn't driven 'The Mercy Papers' based on the subject matter, but because I was curious about her agent. Perhaps that changes my perspective.

Romm writes like the MFA she is, weaving word-pictures of environment and settings. Unfortunately, she's not quite so apt with her character depictions. While it's difficult, when one has written a memoir, to avoid labels like 'narcissist' or 'selfish', I suspect Romm's lack of depth in her depiction of her significant other, childhood friend, and her mother's partners contribute to this problem.

There are honest moments in Romm's journey: anger, self-pity and some good ole Freudian projection. Grief is a messy, politically incorrect, and individualized process. Many people who are drawn to Romm's tale have suffered great losses themselves, and they tend to compare their bereavement to hers. Such an analysis only serves to create a limited concept of the 'right' way to grieve, a nonexistent dichotomy and patently unfair to everyone involved.

In the end, my rating isn't a reflection on Romm's experience, but how she chose to express it, which is to say, void of the self-reflection that develops over time. It's also indicative of my lack of emotional response to Romm, which is not to say that others won't be significantly and positively affected.

[Corinne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first learned of this book via an Entertainment Weekly "Best Books of 2009" list, which I perused while I was sitting in an ICU ward trying to distract myself from the fact that it was looking more and more certain that my reality would soon match up with Romm's. My own mom's passing was very sudden, so I can't say that I could identify with absolutely everything in here - the hospice care experience, for one, which makes up a sizable portion of the book - but I can say that, more than anything else, I was so, so grateful for anything that made me feel a little less alone at that time, and The Mercy Papers did that. It's honest to the point of being unsettling about the experience of death, and I suspect that readers who prefer silver linings won't see the value in telling the whole truth about the messiness of it all, but it was a godsend for me.

[Laura M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was heartwrenching to read. While it would be easy to say that this writer was being selfish by examining the full range of her own emotions as her mother lay dying, I think the act of publishing the story of her raw feelings is the greatest, most self-less gift she could have given to any one of us losing a parent. As the mourners, we know that we are supposed to behave ourselves, and turn our minds only to the suffering we see before us. But this writer has reached deep within herself to expose those quieter hurts, the ones that exist but are rarely seen during a time of loss. For sharing it so openly with us, Ms. Robin Romm is brave; that she does it with such skill is wondrous.

[Heather Barbieri · Rating 4 out of 5]

a fearless, fierce portrait of the process of grief

[Kimberly Patton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, what an incredible writer. I would love to check out more of her work.

This is definitely an amazing, poetic, beautifully written memoir of experiencing death of a loved one up close. The author was very young as her mother slowly got sicker and sicker, and I really appreciated the depth of her honesty in these pages. There were a few things lacking for me but otherwise the book was fantastic. I recommend it to anyone grappling with grief and loss and needing to feel the feelings of anger, rage, frustration, numbness and sadness. This book is a wide open door for embracing the ugliness of grief so that eventually the healing can begin.

[Roberta · Rating 3 out of 5]

My mother was nothing like Jackie Romm. I am nothing like Robin Romm. My relationship with my mother was nothing like Robin’s with Jackie. My mother was not sick with cancer for 9 long years, only 15 months. I didn't feel the great affinity for these women that I thought I would. And just when I thought this book hadn't affected me nearly as much as I had expected it to, when I finished my bedtime reading last night, I cried my eyes out before I fell asleep.

My mother was 67 when she died. I was 29. "I listened to women talk about the pain of losing their mothers at eighty, ninety, ninety-eight. I wrung my hands and kept very quiet, afraid that I would begrudge them their grief since they'd had so much time to be daughters." No matter your age or hers, your mother is always your mother and you are always her daughter. Grief has no age limit.

Afterthought: I don't get the title at all.

[Mary Kruft · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a brutally honest account of a young woman's loss of her mother to cancer. Her mother suffered for about 8 years and Robin, the author, shares details many people are afraid to share. I had some issues with her dislike of the Hospice care her mom & family received. I work for an outstanding Hospice organization and our nurses & social workers are truly angels on earth. Perhaps Robin's care providers were just not what she needed at that time. It is never easy to lost a parent, especially at Robin's young age, and her last chapter is the best of the entire book. She goes to a support group for those who have lost a parent and meets women who are mourning the loss of a 70, 80, or 90 -year old mother. She is bitter that she was "unable to be a daughter" longer and rightfully so. I loved that line. It is so very true. You lose a "role" when your parent dies and the loss never goes away, you learn to live with it. I would recommend this book for anyone who has lost a parent or wants to understand what a good friend might be going through in taking care of a terminally ill parent, but know that the writing is painfully honest. I hope Robin is able to enjoy the rich life she has found now.

[Grace Sutherlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having just recently lost my father who was relatively young to a rare form of lymphoma, I was interested in reading this book to see how the author approached the topic of grief and death in a memoir. Wow. This book is the raw, unvarnished truth about losing a parent. Even when you know someone's death is coming soon, it's gut-wrenching. It truly is what I call a "crazy-making" time or at least it was for me. From coping with watching a parent slowly be consumed by cancer, to Hospice, a DNR, a bedside vigil, the often insensitive nature of people following a death, and coping with the fallout of what is left behind after a parent dies, this author nails the concepts of death and grief. Absolutely stunning book that I will keep on my shelf of books and highly recommend to others who may be facing similar circumstances.

[Jodi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have no idea if this book is as good as I deemed it to be, because it was, for me, essentially an autobiography. To a tee.

[Jill Daly · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The truth of loss is loud and ferocious. This book is a tribute to that truth.”

Sometimes we need to read stores that make us flinch.

I appreciated reading someone else’s experience with losing a mother at a young age and having to live with watching the disease overtake them for many years. My mom had ALS from when I was 12-22. And it was brutal to watch and be a caregiver, and sometimes it’s hard to tell people about it. So reading your honest account of the weeks your mother was dying was validating. Sometimes people make death seem so calm and simple, but in a lot of instances it isn’t.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very sad, stark gem of a short memoir, Robin Romm's The Mercy Papers illustrates the arduously emotional journey of watching her mother's last few weeks of life, at home as a hospice patient. Interspersed with some memories of her life with her mom, an attorney and social advocate, and how her mother's nine-year cancer battle changed her mom, her dad, and herself, Romm manages to be brutal and reflective of this terrible time in her family's history. The writing is quite beautiful at times, but this is not an easy book to read- the author's pain is raw, and she doesn't hold back, but she also is able to construct some sentences that are gorgeous enough to make you reread them a few times to simply absorb them into your brain for good. Four stars.

[Leigh Hancock · Rating 2 out of 5]

My friend Mateo had a good point when he asked why I even read this book. I dunno. "Nothing better to do" doesn't really have the ring of truth. Maybe it was the popsicle sticks on the cover. Whatever the reason, I regreted it immensely--so much that I kept reading, hoping it would get bettr. It didn't. It's not so much that the writing is bad (although it's a bit MLA-stylized)...it's rather that the writer is so venomous toward almost everyone and especially toward the somewhat hapless hospice nurse who, you get the sense, probably has her OWN story to tell about X patient's witch of a daughter. Now the question is--why am I spending more time writing this review?

[Rae · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know, it's not that it was a bad book... I think I'm just mad because I'm never going to find someone who went through EXACTLY what I went through/am going through during and following the death of my own mother. There were parts I really identified with, but it just didn't grab me the way I thought it would. I guess it's different for everybody and nobody's going to write my story except for me.

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Romm writes as a 28 year old losing her mother to cancer, and the parallels in our stories and existential crisis are just so deeply reflective. I've read a lot of books about death since my mum died, half searching for something & half finding comfort in a shared experience. While I found shared experience, I came out of those books feeling like I was missing something from the story. This book made me realize what it had been: an acknowledgement of not only the utter tragedy of motherloss, but a validation of my early realization that nobody will ever love me again the way my mum did. That is the ultimate tragedy in my own story. Romm sums up the experience of this in the best way when she writes,

"When my mother was dying, I found very few books that spoke of the particulars of loss. Much gets said about healing, but what of the violence of the actual event? It seemed to me that most books sought to close the wound, hurry it shut. But death doesn't heed commands. The wound, large as it is, can't close up in a week, in a year, in two years. You can't talk it away in groups, you can't meditate it out of you. The truth of loss is loud and ferocious. This book is a tribute to that truth."

This book will be on my favourites list going forward.

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is this a book about a dog or about a mother’s death—about a father’s impatience with a daughter’s grief process, or a treatise on the right to be selfish about wanting someone to live? This book makes me feel old and crotchety, siding with the protagonist’s father and wanting the girl to stop expecting the world to revolve around her and her feelings, to step outside herself and become more mature. But that’s because I AM old, and I have a 20-something step-daughter who laughs when she’s uncomfortable, when someone else is crying, when someone else is angry or in pain, and I know it’s unreasonable of me to expect this of the author, of my daughter, of young people.

When I was a selfish young person myself once, I also believed the world revolved around me, and had my mother been dying of cancer for so many years, it’s possible I would have reacted in a similar way. The treatise on the unfairness of death, on how it steals precious people we are not ready to lose, on how we are allowed to revel in our anger in that moment—is real and true and right. Everything changes, even that lowest moment, even that greatest pain. This book captures the essence of what it is to be entirely in the darkest darkness just before the light comes.

[Ashly Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned about this book from reading “The Dead Mom’s Club” by Kate Spencer. This memoir sounded so similar to my own experience that I just had to try it out.

Over the past few months, I’ve read a lot about grief and grieving. For me, this book has been by far the most effective. Rather than being about grief, this short memoir covers the span of the author’s mother’s death and how the author handled that immense loss. It’s less about the aftermath, more about the math.

If you’ve experienced losing someone very important to you to cancer, especially through hospice, you will definitely relate to this book. Fair warning, I did get nightmares, haha. The author goes in DEPTH about watching her mother die and all the thoughts, feelings, and images that entails. For me, reading this was a very healing experience. I related to SO many things and could feel the author’s raw pain in each word.

Start to finish, this is an exceptionally written account of loss, and should be read by anyone dealing with it to that extreme. I’m glad to have this in my library.

[Mary Keen · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars for her honesty, altho i can't emphasize with her wanting her mother to keep living and suffering for longer than those 9 years --just so she'd still have her....

I lost my mother many years ago after a shorter bout with cancer, and remember it was about 2 years before i could begin to "get over it" and feel complete happiness again, altho i have a supportive husband and was busy with young children. This reminded me of that difficult time.

It was somehow easier when my dad died, partly bc he was older and would have needed medical intervention which he would have hated, would have had to move in order be close to family members, and he never stopped missing his wife.

Awful re the seemingly-mercenary funeral directors.

Over drive @ 1.25 and 1.5 speeds

[Davishi · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who has lost her mother in early adulthood after prolonged illness and finds that others often can't relate to this experience this was a great read for me in coming to terms with my grief. It was nice to know that some of my thoughts and experiences were at least somewhat universal. Also a good book for anyone who would like a more personal understanding of what caretakers and family members of patients with cancer experience.

There were some slow parts, though it was appropriate for a book about the slow process of dying from a terminal illness.

I felt it was well written and relatable.

[Sorayya Khan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Witnessing the dying of a parent over nine years, much less beginning the journey as a teenager, can only be terrifying. In the face of losing her mother, Romm offers herself to us in all her complexity, with all types of courage, fear, devastation, narcissism, perseverance, and more. This makes her grief journal (as I came to think of it) extremely intimate and sometimes uncomfortably so. But like the numerous ways there are to die, there are so many ways to survive the process, and hers is an honest, wrenching portrayal of one.

[Carmel Breathnach · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book. Here is a link to a blog post I wrote about this book and 9 others I recommend to those whose mothers have died. https://alovelywoman.wordpress.com/20...
The Mercy PapersRobin Romm

[KJ · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at 30%. I should relate to this book intensely as I went through something very similar when I lost my father after 5 years of battling cancer. If I were to write a book about that, I wouldn’t slam the appearances of the hospice nurses, denigrate the people around me who also lost someone, and center the struggle around me and a dog.

We all grieve differently, but I wasn’t expecting a burn book.

[Matthew Holley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished this on the one year anniversary of the day I began a ten day visit with my mom in hospice care…which was much less intense and distressing than Ms. Romm’s experience. But having had that (recent) history allowed me to appreciate her memoir much more than I would’ve been able to otherwise, and it was very interesting to be aware of the Venn diagram aspects of our different/same/different experiences.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m glad I took the time to read and finish this book. I was surprised when I went back and looked at the title that it covers just three weeks. It felt like a lot more. She describes in good detail the time spent at her mother’s side in the last three weeks of an extended (9 year) breast cancer diagnosis and illness. It did help me think about people I’ve been with through such times.

[Sheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

The three weeks before her mother died. A memoir. Mother and daughter facing the gut wrenching final days of illness. I have been reading many of these type of books lately.
It is honest and raw. It was surely cleansing to write. I know it was to read.