Yalom describes visiting his mother in her retirement-home apartment, its tables overflowing with various editions of the books he had written, books she could not possibly read or understand, but that she was proud of as tangible products of her own sacrifice. In a concluding dialogue with his dead mother, Yalom begs her to leave his dream and get on with her own life. That's what I want to say to you. That dream was not your dream, Sonny. It was my dream.
Mothers get to have dreams too.
With her encouragement and illumination, she and Yalom founded the first support groups for dying patients. First, the group created a bridge from one cancer patient to another. It all seems too good to be true, and of course, it is. Their wonderful joint enterprise degenerates into a turf war. Paula becomes increasingly embittered, paranoid and irrational, but expresses her rage with typical New Age indirection.