Book Review/My Name as a Prayer
An end-of-life memoir
My Name as a Prayer
A daughter and her mother find peace…just in time
By Sheridan Hill
Main Street Publishing Co.
Paperback $14.99
By BILL DUNCAN
The News-Review
"My Name as a Prayer," is an intimate slice-of-life memoir about the author’s mother, Troyanne Ross, an eccentric and humorous charm school owner in Charlotte, N.C. who never relinquishes her dream of stardom — even on her deathbed. This is a book about spiritual healing written in the form of a memoir.
The title may seem strange for a memoir, but Hill, a Southern author who writes family history books, explains the meaning at the end of the book:
"I often think of the things my mother said when she was in between worlds, especially when she muttered, ‘…they’re calling my name, my name as a prayer.’"
The book is both sad and hilarious as Hill moves from discussing a quirky mother-daughter relationship and eventually moves on to more serious end-of-life issues. Hill said she "wanted to take the reader gently by the hand and draw them close to the emotional decisions that arise when a parent is in fragile health. When a parent becomes sick, your world turns upside down. When their illness continues for a period of months, the strain on the family is tremendous, but there can also be a time for emotional healing — a once-in-a -lifetime gift."
This is a beautifully written book about a difficult subject and reveals a deep love Hill had for her mother, one that she apparently only realized through the emotional pain of death. She quotes Martin Prechtel, a native American author, as saying "the first grief we know is the lost of our mother’s heartbeat when we leave the womb."
It is obvious from her writing, that Hill had difficult growing up years with her flamboyant mother, a prominent figure in Charlotte, N.C. in the 60s, 70s, and 80s as a frequent star in Little Theater productions and owner of a modeling and charm school and a television personality. "I gained a lifetime of understanding in that last year with her," she wrote. "We made peace with each other and forgave the past. I realized many things about death. There is no right way or wrong way to die, only death as it comes to each of us."
Through the experience of watching her mother die, Hill said the "idea of my own death seems less intimidating. I don’t look forward to death, but when death comes for me, it won’t be a complete stranger."
Hill said her mother’s death made her realize it is not enough to choose powers of attorney and make advance medical directives, "because the forms commonly do not address two enormous issues:
the spiritual activity of dying and the many intricate decisions involved in using life-saving measures. She quoted the Journal of the American Medical Association as saying 92 percent of people surveyed said they wanted to die mentally aware and that 89 percent said they wanted to be ‘at peace with God,’ when they die."
Medical practitioners and hospice staff have terribly difficult jobs, as they cannot avoid being in the presence of someone’s pain every single day, she wrote. "The biggest revelation for me in witnessing my mother’s dying process was to observe that everyone saw something different. I saw a courageous woman who had never taken sedatives, pain killers or nerve-relaxers and who wanted to die drug-free in her own apartment without medical intervention."
Others, she said, only saw a very sick woman. "Perhaps a useful exercise would be for hospice, medical practitioners and family members to regularly discuss the question: "When you look at her, what do you see?"
Hill concludes with:
"Dying is hard work. Grief is hard work. Both take time and Herculean effort and the loving witness of the entire community."
This is a courageous and timely book from a gifted writer, She is a master at putting the reader into the room as she slowly feeds crushed ice to her dying mother, so vivid you can hear the mother crunching the ice.
(Bill Duncan is a hospice volunteer at the Roseburg VA Health Care System. He is also editor of The Senior Times and writes a weekly column each Thursday on the Opinion Page of The News-Review.)
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