Gather Your Tribe is a memoir of the author’s life traumas and most importantly her ability to cope with them. She began by writing about unexpected tragedies in her life; such as her mother’s brain aneurysm and unexpected death; a tree falling on her cabin; her ongoing stomach pain, which unfortunately was eventually diagnosed as B-cell lymphoma. She takes the reader through her struggles with relationships and financial concerns as well as with the support and love of her family, her colleagues from work, and those that are a part of her spiritual growth. She discussed her relationships with her son and daughter, and how the dynamics played out during the beginnings of her cancer, when one’s mortality is brought to focus. Interestingly, she related her gratitude to President Obama and the new health care system, as without it she wouldn’t have been able to afford her treatments.
The primary focus on this book is Mosby’s daily life surrounding her living with cancer, and the spiritual focus that has taken place within her relationships with her friends, family, strangers, and a higher presence. She writes about herself as having “Miss Independent Single Parent Syndrome” as that prevented her to accept help from others and how she struggled to overcome this reluctance.
Mosby writes in prose about her issues, but most of the book is focused on the emails she wrote to her family and friends. She wrote her initial email on March 17, 2014 to “gather her tribe” – which she draws the title of her book. Her tribe is her family and friends who she reached out to help with all of her needs as she went through treatment and recovery. The use of such emails continued until September 11th when she was discharged from cancer treatment and was wonderfully pronounced cancer free.
These emails to her tribe reveal her struggles, thoughts, feelings and her blessings to others. In extraordinary detail, she related her emotions to her treatments, the ongoing side effects, other medical problems, her pain, fear, depression, and the depression of feeling like a victim. She also continually writes about her doctors, nurses and other treatment personnel, expanding on the exceptional treatment she received. All of the emails end with her thanking her tribe, showing how grateful she is to them for their support.
Those that are healthy should be grateful for their well-being and do something fun – she suggests, as a symbolic favor to her. At the encouragement of her friends who unanimously told her she should write a book, she embarked upon writing Gather Your Tribe while still going through treatment. The Epilogue focuses on a conference call she had with President Obama. She also decided to be on the hospital patient advisory board and attended a support group at the cancer center.
We all have our own tragedies and triumphs – how we cope with them is up to us. The author’s focus on utilizing her tribe of friends and family, and her spiritual focus for healing is her story and like many other stories, it is nothing new. The book would have been improved by adding some responses to her emails.
In summary, this memoir while well-written is not unique. Although its readership may be best to include those who enjoy memoirs as well as those who have gone through their own struggles, or who are healing from cancer. It is a story that all of us may have, but hopefully do not have to go through these ordeals.
Overall, this is a very inspiring story about a person who experienced the most painful ordeal and was thrown into the darkest moment of her life. A story of love, courage and acceptance that demonstrates how Kathy Mosby fought all the odds and succeeded amidst pain and adversities. I recommend Gather Your Tribe to anyone wanting to be informed of the way in which one person dealt with living with cancer and how to face your fears head-on.
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