“Bobby Wonderful: An Imperfect Son Buries His Parents”

A Boomer is painfully honest about the death of both his mother and father

How could a book about a Boomer dealing with the death of his parents be so fulfilling and delicious? Bob Morris does just that by sharing all of the intimate details, along with his private thoughts, of first his mother’s death and then his father’s (a few years later).

“I mean, when he was eighty and my mother had not even been gone for half a year, my father asked me for advice about dating. He even asked me to escort him on some of his dates. His year of active romancing, with me along for the ride acting as something between his wingman and his pimp, turned out to be the best year of our lives together. When I sold the Sedan after his death at age eighty-three, I found an unused condom in his glove compartment. I like to tell people that he was always a very hopeful man.”

My god I loved this book. I was riveted, weeping and laughing through it in one full day’s read. Through Bob Morris’ experiences of losing his parents, he manages to sum up how painfully real and unknowingly the Boomers are bearing witness to dying. My parents are healthy and in their 80s, yet his truths and reflections completely tapped into every possible aspect of my thoughts and feelings around their impending deaths.

“Jeff and I drink iced coffee, preparing ourselves for the longest eight hours of our lives. That’s how long it can take, we’ve been told, once the morphine drips starts. It’s 3 p.m. She could be gone by midnight.”

In Bobby Wonderful, An Imperfect Son Buries His Parents, Bob Morris frames himself as the “Wicked Son”, a self-dubbed title inspired by his own self-perception, not reality. There’s nothing wrong with being real, and Bobby is so sweet that we quickly fall in love with him. For all his stark honesty about the unconscionable thoughts, for all the warts exposed, I still came away endeared by Bob and his family. He exposes us to the full gamut of what it is to die. For example, although his mother’s suffering is truly terrible, it consequently allows his father to die more knowledgeable and empowered. As the author points out about the Boomers and death, “It’s a topic that seems to come up all the time now, as much a matter of demographics as a strange new urgency of the Boomer generation to process everything in public.”

“They must know that they aren’t just responsible for showing up to honor our mother but are also meant to talk about her so we can keep her alive a little longer. But they don’t. And it hurts because time is passing and every minute since her death a few days ago, she is getting further from us.”

There is so much great content in this book that it’s hard for me to not quote it all. We learn a lot. On how to die, “I found myself asking lots of questions. I wanted to know if ‘comfort care’ was code for using morphine to gently extinguish all suffering and eventually the heartbeat itself, had been discussed.” Indeed, both the author’s mother and father are put on a morphine drip and are dead within 8 hours.

‘ “Dad, you’re on Zoloft, why aren’t you cheering up?”

“You think it’s that simple?”

He holds his hands under a dryer and I yell over the noise.

“Look, you’re making all of us miserable. I need you to buck up.”

No answer. He keeps drinking. I am now screaming.

“Who do you think you are, dragging us all into your misery? You have a good life, we all love you so much, so why can’t you do us all a favor and fucking buck up?”

The dryer shuts off. The silence hits me like a punch in the gut.’

The author also serves us profound statements such as, “It is often said that the death of someone important in your life doesn’t necessarily mean the relationship is over, just that it’s in a new phase.” Or “Death, I still often think as I watch my friends help their parents die, is for the living.” By page 34, Bob’s mother is dying and I realize the book has me gripped, holding my breath with his every word conversation-to-conversation.

Bob Morris’ writing style is so beautiful to read. This book is a great story for anyone, since, let’s face it, we’ll all lose a parent at some point. It also sums up how the Boomers are single-handedly changing the way we die. I personally really related to how his family was uncomfortable touching each other – always painful, especially at such difficult life moments. He taps into the Boomer ethos in many ways, a generation raised on pills, when he asks, “Is there a pill a son can take to open his heart to his father?”

This is a deeply personal book filled with profound moments at every turn of a page. At the moment of all moments, when death finally arrives, Bob’s simple words as he witnesses his first death (his mother’s) express the surreal moment better than anyone could: “It’s enormous what happens in the instant of death.” If my own praise for this book did not give you goose bumps, well you’ll just have to read it to get the full impact. This book is a gift from a gifted man on all fronts.

P.S. Hey, Bobby, if you catch this review, I hope those crystal lamps looked great in your new house and I’m so happy you found Ira.