Customer Reviews

The Last Violet: Mourning My Mother

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"The Last Violet: Mourning My Mother" is the strongly moving and emotional reflections of Lois Tschetter Hjelmstad as she travels from regret and pain to peace and acceptance after losing her mother. The author opens her heart and provides the reader a voyeuristic view inside the strong emotions accompanying her journey. It is hard to read the book without feeling her pain and travelling along with her on her journey to peace. For anyone that has lost a loved one the book offers a roadmap to working through the grief as well as the solace of knowing they are not alone and their emotions are normal. For those who have not lost a loved one it brings the realization that sooner or later we will all experience such a loss and we should use our time with others wisely while they are alive.

Very personal in nature, it is a highly recommended read for those working through such a loss and anyone who wants an understanding of the grieving process. A recommended read for everyone else.

The Last Violet: Mourning My Mother is a powerful memoir and moving testimony of one woman's long struggle to accept the grief of her mother's passing. Written by Lois Tschetter Hjelmstad (an experienced international speaker to more than 400 cancer support groups) and highly recommended reading for anyone seeking to come to grips with the pain of personal loss, The Last Violet deals candidly and intimately with the process of grief from the initially depression to an ultimate acceptance and peace.

I read this book in two sittings, captured by Lois' honesty and vulnerability and the sincerity of her desire to understand her mother as well as herself as her mother's daughter. What a wonderful, candid record of the need for love between mother and daughter. Reading the book will help many, many daughters when their time comes to say good-bye. By having the courage to record her feelings and then artistically pull them together into The Last Violet, Lois has opened a door to the heart for all daughters.

Margaret Marshall Rhyne, Remembering Alexis, Finding Perspective in Love and Loss

Talk about a moving story! I'm still fortunate enough to have my mother with me; this book is just a heartbreaker. I could barely read it. In fact, I would only read 4-5 pages at a reading and then put it away. It's a necessary part of life, but one that's not fun to face.

Trying to deal with your own breast cancer is a personal war that many women fight with support by their husbands, family, relatives or friends. When it comes to your own Mother fighting cancer, the illness takes on another face. Convincing your Mother to fight cancer isn't an easy path. Some adults choose not to acknowledge or fight it. To them, the cancer doesn't exist and they go on with their lives as if nothing has happened. But to family, friends, and relatives, it's a tortuous picture to view and take in. Ms. Lois Tschetter Hjelmstad's book, The Last Violet - Mourning My Mother brings us daughters reminders that we can't live our mother's lives for them. They must make the decision on whether to fight for their lives and continue living or withdrew from life altogether and consign themselves to die. Her understanding of herself and at her mother's decision not to fight her cancer makes us all realize how precious life is and why we must hold to it if our natures allowed us to. I rate Ms. Lois Tschetter Hjelmstad The Last Violet-Mourning My Mother five stars.