The Mirror/Beach-Riverdale/Oct. 15, 2004/ Review by Michele McLean

Author shares experiences of coping with mother's death

A Beach resident is sharing her spiritual and inspirational story about the death of her mother in her first book, If Mom's Not Dead by 9, I'm Leaving.

"I hope the book helps people examine who they are and how they are with a parent," Charlene Roycht said. "I hope it helps someone heal with their mom and helps them be a bigger and better person."

The experience Roycht shared with her mom during her last year of life was a gift, she said. The journey with her mother made her a better person, she said.

"We think we don't have the time for anything. We're so stressed out. We're fast, hard and busy. That's not the way to live from your heart. We need to stop, go into our heart so we can come out from our heart." She said she had to let go of her own agenda and truly be there for her mother.

"It's about just being love," she continues. "There's no agenda. You're really living in the moment. It's really hard to get there." Roycht said her relationship with her mother had always been strained, but it wasn't until she experienced her mother's struggle that they became closer. "My mom and I had a healing, deepening in our relationship, " Roycht said. "We felt that deep level of love."

Roycht would drive from her home in the Beach to Toledo, Ohio to spend weeks at a time with her mother who was living in an extended care facility, near her sister, Donna. She said she was exhausted much of the time from driving back and forth since she wanted to spend as much time with her mother as she could.

"I spent a lot of time there ... I saw my mother's struggle intensely." Roycht's mother suffered from emphysema and congestive heart failure. "It wasn't the way I imagined my mother's last year of life would be. It was an ugly death. I thought she would just die peacefully in her sleep."

Roycht and her sister had faced their mother's death over the year-long struggle. "We had discussed mom's funeral and said goodbye four or five times." She'd get worn down and then come back and be healthy. "I'd be trying to reasssure her. When she realized she wasn't going home, I think I looked at mom in a new way and she saw me in a new way."

Out of exhaustion, her sister said, "If Mom's not dead by 9 p.m., I'm leaving." That way, one of them could go home to get some rest. It was said a few times.

On April 8, 2003, the night her mother died, Roycht said staff at the centre suggested the sisters let their mother die on her own. "The staff said maybe she didn't want to go when someone was around," Roycht shared. But Charlene said she couldn't leave. "I told her that I loved her and held her hand," as her mom started to take her last breaths. Then there was a deep sigh. "I thought is that it?" It was. "When I saw her face I knew her spirit was gone. I knew she was in peace. It was beautiful. A change happened. We do have a spirit. Her spirit went so fast."

Roycht grew up in Chicago and moved to Canada in the 60's. She's lived in the Beaches over 25 years. She has been a teacher, a comedian, a driver in the film industry. She survived colon cancer in 1998. She was just feeling energetic again when her mother developed her first bout of pneumonia and agreed to move temporarily from Arizona to Toledo. Roycht started driving back and forth immediately.

"I just started writing. I think it was divine intervention. I don't know. I'm a creative person. I felt frustrated." She wrote in notebooks, on napkins, or on whatever was handy. After her mother's death, Roycht gathered up her scraps of notes to input them on her computer.

"I realized I had a book." After having difficulty finding a publisher, Roycht decided to self-publish. "I just so believed in it. I hope anyone who reads it gets the message to be as good as you can be, in all circumstances." Roycht said it was scary opening up herself and her mother's relationship to the world. But in the end, she said getting the message out was more important.

"I'm so proud of mom. I'm so proud of the woman she became. I'm proud of myself because I grew a lot, too."