MOM'S DIARY

West recounts his mother’s struggle with cancer and his own challenging experience in reading her diary, long after her death.

The author writes that after he discovered his mother’s diary in a box of her personal effects, he made three attempts to fully read it over 20 years, but stopped each time. She died of metastatic breast cancer in 1999 when she was only 53, but before that, she chronicled her battle with the disease and her dependence upon pain medication. It was a part of her life that West found difficult to revisit. His mother, he says, was once a very cheerful person, gregarious and optimistic; later, she became depressed and fearful, consuming multiple Xanax pills simultaneously and using prescriptions from several different doctors. West was deeply troubled by his mother’s addiction, and also by the transformation of her character once a “victim mindset” had replaced her earlier fortitude. The author reflects with candor on his mother’s difficulties, as well as on his own personal challenges, including his feeling that he’d somehow “lost [his] way”: “Because of her, I believed that anything was possible….Two decades after mom’s death, I don’t feel the same.” West’s reflection is a searching one. Among other reasons, he finally read his mother’s diary to discover if she was content with her decision not to attend college: “I always was keenly aware that mom harbored an innate feeling that she hadn’t pursued things the way she wanted.” His despair at his mother’s feelings of isolation is heartbreaking, and he presents a moving account of their last moments together in powerful, unembellished prose: “My final minutes with mom aren’t memorable to me. I was numb. I don’t even recall what I said. It doesn’t matter, I think I’d said everything before. I kissed her on the forehead and slowly walked out.” As a whole, however, the memoir has a meandering character and, as a result, is often repetitive. Despite its genuine virtues, this memoir will be most cherished by those who know West personally.

A slightly uneven but often powerful remembrance of a loved one.