How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter's Memoir

This chapter opens with the death of Molly Jong-Fast’s aunt at age 77, a loss that prompted her to visit Ken at his nursing home facility. Ken requested a red tie for the funeral and expressed his desire to return to their former apartment, which Jong-Fast had secretly sold.

The chapter further delves into Jong-Fast’s complex relationship with her mother. She describes the painful irony of finally having her mother’s attention after years of desperately seeking it as a child, only to no longer want that connection. She recounts childhood memories of sitting outside her mother’s office, hoping for time together, and competing with Ken for solo trips with her mother. Now, as an adult, she found herself avoiding visits and lying about when she would return.

Jong-Fast presents her mother as existing in a liminal state between life and death, both present and absent simultaneously. During phone conversations, her mother failed to recognize important information, including Jong-Fast’s 45th birthday, and could not grasp that Ken was dying despite Jong-Fast’s direct attempts to communicate this reality. The author reflects on how she began referring to her mother in the past tense even while she remained alive, a shift that made Jong-Fast question her own mental stability.