Blue Ink: This is an intelligently written memoir,…
… there are many universal moments here that children of the 70’s in particular will appreciate. Likewise any woman who has lost her mother will relate to this tale.
Kirkus: Scott’s memoir stands out for its ability to grab and hold readers. For any reader, Scott’s look back on small-town-life in Texas is an entertaining read; for those facing the death of a parent, it’s a promise of better days ahead.
Clarion: Such honest self-reflection is the best part of the book. Scott’s account of the year after her mother’s death provides insight into a mind both shaped and inspired by grief. The Year My Mother Died ... is sure to provide some comfort to those going through their own loss.
Reader Reviews
Sydney Young
This book resonates deep within, probably because I lost my mother, and my mother-in-law, at the onset of "middle age", triggering many of the same responses discussed in this memoir (albeit in different manifestations). The loss of your mother is an enormous, ground shifting event, and it was comforting to me to know that even a palliative care doctor - who knew what was coming - found herself in utterly unfamiliar territory as she tried to stand on the shifting ground beneath her feet.
Bonnie Neely
The Year My Mother Died, A Memoir by Sherry Scott is a brave book, which will make you both cry and laugh, as you read the deeply personal and moving account of how the author spent the year of her mother's death. Dr. Scott is a pediatrician who has spent years in palliative care for parents and families who are grieving over the eminent death or loss of a child. When she discovered her mother was dying she assumed she herself would be able to be the strong one, since she was familiar with all the "right" things to do and say to those in deep sorrow and distress. However, she discovered that no one can truly be prepared for the emotional twists and turns that grief takes deep inside the grief-stricken.
Dee Martin
Within two years, my husband and I lost both our parents. My children in elementary school and junior high now had no grandparents. It was hard to give in to grief knowing your spouse was swamped with it as well and so we both just kind of floated along on a cloud of pain. It is a comfort to know that everyone, no matter how prepared they may think they are, has to navigate this same deep water in their own time. Well written and at times even funny.
Kristi
I was quickly drawn into, and remember, so many of Sherry's accounts of life in NE TX in the *cough* 50s, 60s, & 70s. Her writing, according to those around me, made me smile quite a lot. It also produced me heartily laugh out loud, reminisce, and connect with other women through the common bond of grief. She identifies and labels both the deep feelings as well as the searching inner questions I grappled with the year my own mother died. Excellent.
