Dead Mom Walking (Rachel Matlow)
“Dead Mom Walking” is a memoir, 10% a story of how Rachel Matlow’s Mom (Elaine) died from cancer, 90% a story of how they lived (in spite of cancer, despite cancer, in denial of cancer… but mostly just the living part).
When Elaine is diagnosed with Stage 1 colorectal cancer after a routine colonoscopy, she’s given a 70-90% survival rate and encouraged to pursue surgery. Instead (to the anger and disbelief of her loved ones), Elaine decides she doesn’t want medical intervention. She assembles a cadre of alternative healers – there are herbs and tinctures, alkalized water and reflexology. Eventually there are juice fasts, coffee enemas, and infrared saunas. The pleas from family are not entertained – Elaine is fiercely independent, and she will do this her own way. The frustration Rachel feels is overwhelming. In the 5 years following Elaine’s initial diagnosis, she progresses through Stage 2 and Stage 3, still staunchly defending her decision to treat naturally. When she is diagnosed with Stage 4, mets on her liver, a prognosis of less than 2 years to live, she forgoes palliative chemotherapy (for one because it might interfere with her homeopathic treatments). And then, Elaine dies, from the cancer that she had a very good chance of surviving.
That’s the one-dimensional telling of the story. The three-dimensional telling is why you should pick up this book – to laugh, and cry, and rage, and reminisce along with Rachel. I’ve never read anything that more embodies the truism “we die as we lived.” Life and death are so messy, so personal, and love so easily capable of existing alongside regret and disappointment. This is a story of two whole lives, not just the end of one. It’s about family, and trauma, and hope, and all-purpose exasperation. It’s rich and beautiful. It’s so f***ing infuriating.
Nowhere for the feelings to go but in.