Sixtyfive Roses

Book excerpt: Heather Summerhayes was six when her four-year-old sister Pam was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis and given only months to live. “Sixtyfive roses” was the way Pam pronounced the name of the disease that forever altered the lives of her siblings and parents, who in turn helped alter the community’s response to the disease by founding the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. With the help of the CF Foundation, research and new treatments, the fight to save Pam’s lasted for years, until her death at the age of twenty-six.This beautifully written memoir offers a compassionate yet unflinching eyewitness account of the hope, pain, and courage of a family in crisis as it falls apart and outs itself together again and again, to emerge stronger and more loving. The heart of the story explores the relationship between the two sisters—one devastatingly ill, the other healthy but burdened with guilt—as they journey through childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.