I’m going to be the first one to tell you that Delia Ephron’s memoir Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life is definitely not for everyone. Those of you who watched a loved one suffer from cancer or another long, drawn-out disease will probably not want to pick this up. There will be too much pain, too much about medical treatment in this book for many people. I had a reason that I appreciated this book. It worked for me.

Delia Ephron spent thirty-seven years with her soulmate, Jerry, a playwright and screenwriter. He had a terminal diagnosis for six years. Ephron spent ten years of her life dealing with death, with her sister Nora who died of cancer, and with her husband. She said she was in a continual state of high anxiety. Nora died of AML, leukemia, and it’s hereditary. Delia was seventy-one when she lost her husband.

Three days after the one-year anniversary of Jerry’s death, she received an email from Peter Rutter. He was a psychiatrist/Jungian psychoanalyst who read an article Ephron wrote about trying to deal with Verizon when she shut down Jerry’s landline. His wife had died in March. It was now October. He mentioned that he and Delia had dated once in college, and that Nora had fixed them up. That was enough to catch Delia’s attention. In November, they went on their first date. They were both seventy-two, and they became as obsessed as anyone “falling under the spell of romance”.

But, in March 2017, Delia was diagnosed with AML. Everyone in the medical profession told her she was not her sister Nora, who had died of the disease. This was a new day with new treatments. Just because Nora died didn’t mean Delia would. Peter took the time to put his life and practice in order in California, and when he returned to New York to be with Delia, he didn’t leave again.

Obviously, Delia Ephron lived to write this memoir. But, I want to mention my personal connection to the emotions in this book, and why I appreciated it. I found the first chapter comforting in a bizarre way because I could identify with it. When Delia’s first husband, Jerry, was in the last stages of his disease, she wanted him to die at home, so he went into hospice. She was told the same thing I was when my husband was in hospice. If he falls, and he can’t get him up, and the spouse can’t lift him, call 911, and tell the fire department you need a lift. Ephron had a much worse experience with that than I did. When asked if the fire department is to take the person to the hospital, the spouse is to answer no. Once they’re taken to the hospital, they’re no longer under hospice. They’re under the hospital rules, and they can try to keep the person alive despite all of the patient’s decisions not to be kept alive or resuscitated. When Jim fell, and I was asked that question, one fireman stood behind the other, shaking his head no to remind me. Ephron was in hysterics because the fire department wanted to take her husband to the hospital despite her wishes.

Delia Ephron looked back, and questioned all of her actions. Did she do the right thing for her husband? This is something I did as well. Did I do as much as I could? Did I make the right decisions? And, I found myself being decisive at times, and questioned myself afterwards. I found it comforting to realize I wasn’t alone in this, that Delia Ephron questioned herself as well.

No. Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life isn’t for everyone. It was just a book I needed to read.

Delia Ephron’s website is http://www.deliaephronwriter.com/

Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life by Delia Ephron. Little, Brown & Co., 2022. ISBN 9780316267656 (hardcover), 295p.

FTC Full Disclosure – Library book