PHOTO BY PAULA MULLER
Lerna Roberts talks about her memoir “Closing Chapter: Memoir of a Daughter’s Grief,” while looking through a family album.

By GAYLA CAWLEY

LYNN — In her first book, Lerna Roberts chronicles the many layers of a tumultuous relationship with her mother, who died in a nursing home eight years ago.

Roberts began writing her memoir, “Closing Chapter: Memoir of a Daughter’s Grief,” under the pen name Bella when her mother became ill. Her mom, who she calls Rachel in the book, preferring not to disclose her real name, died of emphysema, a chronic lung disease, in Missouri. She said she wrote the book in the two years that her mother was in the nursing home before eventually succumbing to her disease.

Within months of her mother’s death, Roberts said she also had to deal with the demise of two uncles, a younger sister, brother, and a nephew.

“There were so many deaths,” Roberts said. “It was really a struggle. I just think my mother called them or they missed her so much they didn’t want to be here anymore.”

The book deals with that struggle, along with the negative feelings Roberts has toward her mother being placed in a nursing home. Her mother should not have been there, she said, and while Roberts visited her every few months, she is convinced that the family didn’t visit often enough. She writes that some of them were just 30 minutes away, but only saw their mother once a year. Partly because of that, Roberts is estranged from her remaining siblings. She hasn’t spoken to her older sister in years.

In the memoir, Roberts outlines the difficult relationship she had with her mother, writing the two always fought, including while her mother was confined to the nursing home. Part of the tension stemmed from the fact that her mother didn’t want her to leave their hometown of St. Louis. She said it was also because her mother couldn’t offer emotional support when she dealt with her own tragedy.

Roberts said she, her mother and her sister have all been raped. Her mother was raped by her uncle. She said nothing was ever done about the incident. But karma eventually came when the uncle got really old and couldn’t take care of himself, and her mother was expected to care for him. So, she, her mother and another relative, abused him in return, using a whip and only allowing him upstairs to eat, Roberts recalled.

The whip was the same one that belonged Roberts’ grandfather, who used it to hurt her and other family members. She said the whip was used on her up until she had her first child at 17 years old.

Roberts said her sister was viciously raped by a group of boys, who had first beat her. Her own rape occurred when a janitor from one of the buildings she lived in broke into her home. She thought it was her husband kidding around, but it wasn’t.

After her rape, she said her mother was unable to comfort her. Part of the reason for frequent visits to her mother in the nursing home was because she wanted to make amends.

“I learned after living in Massachusetts that my mother gave all she had to us so I tried to give it back,” she said.

The book also explores how her mother was raised. Roberts said her mother got pregnant at a young age and grew up under a barrage of abuse. Her mother’s parents never threw her a birthday party, so she finally requested that Roberts throw her one when she turned 70.

Finishing the book, which was released last month, has helped Roberts heal from the regrets she has surrounding her mother. Despite the tension in their relationship, she said she would have done anything for her mother. The memoir has also helped her establish a written record of the story, rather than just passing it down orally.

Roberts was born in St. Louis, but has lived in Massachusetts for more than 40 years. She moved to the state when she was 21, living in Boston before making her way to Lynn.

At the time, Roberts used illicit drugs and came to Lynn to purchase them. Once, she got lost coming down Lynn Shore Drive and had never noticed the ocean like she had that day. She appreciated the city’s beauty for the first time and now lives two blocks from where she got lost.

“Something greater than myself was looking out for me,” Roberts said.

These days, Roberts has gone from homeless to homeowner, and from drug addict to community activist. She said the suffering was a prelude to what was coming in her life.

“I’m a happy person now,” she said. “Am I completely healed? I don’t know. I feel when I get up in the mornings, I get to decide what my day will be like.”

Roberts has scheduled a book signing at the Lynn Museum on April 30 from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Gayla Cawley can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @GaylaCawley