Memoir Review

Sixtyfive Roses
By Heather Summerhayes Cariou
ISBN-10: 1552786781
Review by Heather Froeschl



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.