Product Description

A loving, funny and profoundly moving literary memoir. The redemptive story of two sisters growing up in the shadow of a fatal illness, and a family fighting for a child's life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #372727 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 436 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781552786789
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
An honest, chilling tale of a family dealing with chronic illness, this memoir's subject is Cariou's sister, Pam, who at the age of four was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis, a terminal disease of the lungs and pancreas marked by severe coughing and malnutrition; unable to pronounce her condition, young Pam dubs it instead "Sixtyfive Roses." What follows is no heartwarming tearjerker; early on, Cariou cagily warns that "the world of chronic-terminal illness is, in many ways, akin to the world of war." Written to fulfill a deathbed promise Cariou made to write "our" story, and a promise to her mother to tell the truth, the result frequently is not pretty. Initially given no more than six years to live, Pam was among the first wave of Cystics to reach adulthood (she died at 25), but her life is a daily struggle, crammed with treatments, hospitalizations, false starts and faint hope, setbacks and unfulfilled dreams. Cariou keeps readers distanced with an unemotional account that invites more wary ambivalence than sympathy, a risky technique that may put off some readers, but communicates well the complicated feelings that long-term illness can breed in families.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
Read this book: your life will never be the same. -- Storycircle Book Review, December 13, 2007

Globe and Mail Best 100 Books of 2006

"Cariou is a deft emotional cartographer...Sixtyfive Roses is a love letter, a thank-you note, a defence, a plea, a setting straight, a reaching out. " - Paula Todd, Globe and Mail book review -- Globe and Mail, November 18th, 2006

Sixty-Five Roses is truly a heart-wrenching, yet beautiful account of two sister's love for one another as one sister, Pam, battles daily for her life with cystic fibrosis. This memoir cast an even wider net of love encompassing and making transparent the lives of the entire family on this journey about love, understanding, illness, heartaches, and accomplishments. A lifetime story that leaves no emotion in a safe harbor. This memoir is told with complete honesty and with a soft conscience. Get ready to be inspired. -- Web Newsletter of the National Association of Babyboomer Women, 2007

Sixtyfive Roses: A Sister's Memoir by Heather Summerhayes Cariou is one of the most moving memoirs I have ever read. Every page holds your interest and leaves you wanting to never stop reading. This book also reads smoothly like a novel, as you care about the characters and the story is fascinating from beginning to end. Heather write so lovingly of her sister Pam, who suffers from cystic fibrosis--together they and the entire family struggle and learn and fight and love and live and laugh and triumph in so many ways. What a journey. You will be happy to have gone with them. -- Village Book Staff Pick, January 15, 2008

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
I live where the river meets the sea.

I live where the waters of the Hudson end their cold journey to the Atlantic. My windows open to the East, the direction Native Americans believe one must face to ask blessings for a new beginning. The morning sun glances off the water strongly enough to blind you. Late afternoon turns the entire West side of Manhattan to flame. At night the rising moon hangs above the jeweled horizon like the Eye of God. The river flows by me, and flows through me. Memory flows through me.

I live where the river meets the sea, where push comes to shove, where love and anguish, blame and forgiveness, laughter and sorrow converge on the way to understanding.

PROLOGUE

Labor Day Weekend 1980

My sister tries to breathe. Her lungs make crackling sounds as she takes quick, shallow gasps, her chest heaving in short bursts followed by long drawn out moments of utter stillness, each one longer than the last. My heart jumps before she breathes again. Her lips are blue. They flutter almost imperceptibly beneath the plastic of her oxygen mask. Her eyes are closed.

My own breath comes hard against the pain of losing her. I hold her hand, sitting next to her bed in the room where she once dreamed her teenage dreams. Gray light bleeds through curtains drawn against a late summer storm. We are cocooned by death and the sound of heavy rain.

As children, we loved to watch it storm - the wind flailing the trees, the lightning stabbing the sky, the rain thrashing its way toward earth. We stood together in the open doorway breathing in the dank sweet air, squealing, clutching each other with fear and glee at every clap of thunder. The mixing bowls, pots and pans we placed in the driveway spilled over with soft rainwater. After the storm died, we stood together at the kitchen sink using the rain we'd saved to wash each other's hair.

But that was long ago, when rain was clean and hope was still a blessing.

She stirs, yanking the mask from her face, slowly focusing her eyes.

"Where's Mom?"

"Making tea. I'll get her."

We three are alone in the house. My brothers and sister-in-law have not arrived yet. My father is out at the pharmacy picking up morphine to mix with Pam's favorite peach brandy. "Bromptman's Cocktail" it is called, a drink prescribed for death, to ease the pain.

Quickly I fetch my mother from the kitchen, but linger in the hallway while she ministers to Pam. Our baby pictures hang along the wall. There I am, the proud big sister, not quite three, with Pam nestled up beside me, almost a year old. She has just learned to sit. There we are again, our infant brother Gregg propped between us, leaning on my sheltering arm. I am six and Pam is four. She grins triumphantly, having just pulled a bow from her hair. I remember her annoyance at that bow the moment before the shot was taken. I remember her chesty cough, and the way she matter-of-factly explained it to the photographer. "I have Sixtyfive Roses." She couldn't pronounce the name of her disease. Cystic Fibrosis.

"Heather," my mother whispers behind me, "Pam wants to see you."

I go in and stand at the foot of her bed. My stomach lurches as I realize that when she speaks, her words will be the last we share. She sits upright, propped by pillows, her fragile arms stretched forward up and over a hospital table to create more space for air in lungs filling relentlessly with blood and mucus, lungs punctured and scarred, frothing, folding in on themselves like wet plastic bags.

She wheezes, the humidity of August a granite slab weighing on her chest. Her words come hard, slowly, one by one, punctuated by long, trembling, tortuous breaths that she draws from the center of the earth. Her hazel eyes bore into me. Her bony fingers, clubbed and purple at the tips, clench the sides of the table as she struggles to speak.

Write...our...story," she commands.

My sister's voice is not her own.

"Tell...what we...lived through...together."

A great energy washes through the room, as if a veil between worlds has been lifted. My skin prickles with the sensation. "Yes," I whisper. "I will." She reaches out, fiercely grasping my hand. "PROMISE ME."

"I promise."

She releases her grip and falls back. A soft roar fills my ears; the hiss of the rain, maybe, the whirr of my own blood racing, the cold hush of swift black water as my sister begins to drown and I am swept alone downstream.

Customer Reviews

Great Memoir Very Moving
When reading a biography, the hard part is often if you know the end of the story. This book is a powerful take of life, service, and a family that stood and faced a terrible disease and the medical community, and changed the odds, not only for their family member, but also for all families that deal with Cystic Fibrosis. This is a chronicle of a family's struggle against CF for 22 years. Our narrator, Heather Summerhayes, was 6 when her 4-year-old sister was diagnosed with CF, a disease that, at the time, her sister Pam pronounced as 'Sixtyfive Roses'.

At the time of Pam's diagnoses she was only given months to live. Yet the family believed differently and fought against it. Their mother promised that they would do all they could for sick little Pam and they did. The Summerhayes helped to create the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation with the assistance of the U.S. association and the Sick Kids hospital in Toronto. They set up a Financial Advisory Board as well as a Medical Advisory Board to help families deal with this disease and to raise funds for research for a cure for this illness.

This is a story of true Canadian strength - a story of hope, love and charity. This book, which spans years in a the Summerhayes' family life, will draw you into their struggle with prevailing opinions, medical advances, and always a struggle to love Pam, and seek what is best for her. Pam became one of a first wave of children diagnosed with this disease who lived into adulthood. Now the family and the medical staff were in new territory and 'all bets were off'.

Heather does an amazing job of recalling her family's life, living and dying with CF. She reflects in a sober way on the hard moments and celebrates the victories. The story is told in a well balanced way, not focusing just on the difficulties of living with a terminal disease. Heather tells the story of her cherished sister's life. A life lived to the full.

This book is a powerful story that will give you courage and faith to face the trials in your own life and the lives of the people who are dear to you. Celine Dion writes a moving forward.

The hard part of reading biographies is that you know where the story is going - yet with this one, the journey to get there is so moving and powerful, it will be great read.

(First Published in Imprint 2007-06-29 as in the book review column.)

Took my breath away...
As a parent to a child with Cystic Fibrosis, I'm always hesitant to read something when the title already tells me how it ends... but I heard from a friend with CF that it was amazing, so I dove in right after I got my hands on a copy of the book... and am I glad that I did!

Heather writes with amazing clarity and has a beautiful talent for drawing the reader into the situation in a way that makes you feel as if you are truly there. The honesty of Heather's portrayal of the family's struggles strikes a deep chord for those who have walked in similar shoes, and while the book is about their specific journey with CF, the lessons to be taken from this book would easily apply to other chronically ill families as well.

I'm especially grateful for Heather's intense and gruelingly honest feelings about growing up as Pam's older sister. The way she captures her mother's feelings and weaves them all together is nothing short of magical. The perspective I've gained from reading this book for the first time has left me earnestly more aware of the potential struggles my oldest child might face while she grows up with her little sister with CF.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone dealing with chronic illness ~ families, as well as care providers.

Bonds between sisters can be deeply profound
Bonds between sisters can be deeply profound. Life changing, life sustaining relationships with our sisters prove this. Heather Summerhayes Cariou's memoir, "Sixtyfive Roses" demonstrates the bond of sisterhood in a way that readers will never forget. When your sibling, your best friend, is given months to survive, and you vow to die along with her, life becomes a struggle to live.

When Pam was just four years old, and Heather was six, Pam was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis, which Pam pronounced Sixtyfive Roses. It wasn't a new experience, handling Pam's illness, since she had been ill all along, but it now had a name, and a death sentence. Heather's family began to learn everything about Cystic Fibrosis; became founders of the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and fought for Pam's life with every fiber of their being. Heather describes how helpless it felt to lay awake listening to her sister breathing, ready to jump up to get her parents, and how scared she was to wake in the morning to find Pam gone from life. The treatments they were to give Pam at home, the long hospital stays fighting infections, the struggle to pay bills, and the toll on everyone's lives shook the foundation of their family but at the same time made them all the stronger. Heather's internal struggle with her feelings and adolescence brought forth an angry young woman; the constant turmoil affected each family member in different ways. The tradition of having tea became a soothing ointment for many moments. Was it enough to soothe their souls?

This memoir is an astounding testament to the strength of family, but also to the reality of illness and a person's spiritual growth. Witnessing Pam finding her own peace and subsequently Heather's whole family is the gift Pam left for us all, wrapped up and crafted into "Sixtyfive Roses" by Heather Summerhayes Cariou. This book is about depth of love and dedication, it is about sisterhood and family, it is about Cystic Fibrosis and the research that is being done, it is about one family's selfless dedication, and it is about Pam. Excellently written, with a foreword by Celine Dion, who has also been touched by Cystic Fibrosis in her family, readers will not be able to put the book down. One can't help but be moved in reading it.