Carrie and Me: A Mother-Daughter Love Story
by Carol Burnett
Our book club theme was “Things We Fear” for
September. I know the scariest thing for me is always the idea of something
happening to my child. There are certain things I can’t even read, but I’ve
long intended to read this one.
I have always enjoyed the Carol Burnett show and I
really enjoyed her daughter, Carrie, when she was on the television show Fame.
It’s mind blowing to me to realize it was back in 1986-87 when I was all of 12
or 13.
Of course, when you watch Carol Burnett, or other
famous performers, you can’t help thinking they’ve got it all and life should
be a piece of cake. But life isn’t really like that.
This story has some very happy and inspiring moments,
but there are some very raw and painful times as well. Carrie was addicted to
drugs in her teen years and Carol talks candidly, reading from her own diary,
about those struggles, her fears and confusion about what to do.
Thankfully, Carrie did find a way through with Carol’s
help. The family had sent Carrie to a rehab center and thought she was doing
great when she returned home. After a year, they celebrated her sobriety but
that night they found out how wrong they were. Carrie refused to go back to
rehab and left the family home. Carol worried about her terribly.
When Carrie was 17, close to 18, Carol decided she needed
to “love her enough to let her hate me.” She conned Carrie into going to see
her father who was in rehab and arranged for Carrie to be held there. Luckily,
it worked out for the best. Carrie and her father both got better.
A couple decades down the line, Carrie had a number of
great acting credits to her name as well as writing. She was living in
Colorado. She was just embarking on a new project, taking a trip to Memphis,
Tennessee, to research her latest project.
When she got back home, she didn’t recover from the
fatigue of traveling though. Her local doctor diagnosed her with one thing and
then another, but treatments didn’t work. Carol convinced her to come home and
see a specialist.
Carrie never got to finish her project. She died of
cancer in 2002. She asked Carol to finish her project but Carol could never
quite manage it. It’s included in this book.
It’s a tough read, Carol’s grief is palpable. I
listened to it on audio so that may have brought it home even more. But there’s
a lot of beauty here too as they really seemed to love each other and
corresponded quite a bit, by email and letter.
It’s a wonderful remembrance and I can recommend it to
anyone who is interested.
