My Sister's Keeper

The first of my memories involve my older sister, Patricia. Like Kate in "My Sister's Keeper," she had been sickly from the time I could remember. Luckily, my sister had anemia rather than the more severe childhood leukemia that Kate had. Despite having anemia, a heart murmur, migraine head aches, and a childhood concussion, she grew up, married and had four children before her untimely demise at the still early age of 59. When we were children, my sister was the one who thought of things to get us in trouble, and I was the one that got us in trouble. We had escapades together and other escapades with my mother such as the one in "My Sister's Keeper" when the mother and daughters went shopping with all three having bared heads. I had been putting off reading Jodi Picoult's "My Sister's Keeper" for a decade. I did not want to deal with my sister's death even in a fictionalized version. In the last of couple of days, I have immersed myself in the book, and it was well worth the experience.

My Sister's Keeper

My Sister's Keeper has a lot to say about sibling rivalry in its extreme form. It has a lot to say about the fierceness of a mother's love. It has a lot to say about the morally scary decisions we are faced with in this new age of the human genome project, stem cell research, and cloning research. The novel is also a good story with plenty of detail and subplots. I have not seen the movie yet but after watching the trailers for this presentation, I know I want to, and yes, I am glad I read the book first.

The story is told in the first person from several different points of view--Kate, the child who has cancer, Anna, the child conceived as a genetic solution to help Kate fight off her cancer, Jessie, their brother, Brian, their father and Sara, their mother, Campbell, Anna's lawyer and Julia, a court appointed person to help sort out the situation.

Even though sibling rivalry comes to fore in many scenarios, there are also many beautiful exchanges that show the siblings' love and support for each other as well. There are also beautiful scenes between Sara, their mother, and the two daughters. Brian is also touching as a father.

I am a firm believer that fiction helps us to sort out things in our own lives and develop a point of view about different societal as well as personal dilemmas. I think this book helped me to think more deeply about the philosophical implications of the scientific research going on today in the field of genetics and stem cell research. I think it also helped me to deal symbolically with some of the issues I had been avoiding in relationship to my sister's early death.

I am glad I read the book first but now I definitely want to see the movie. At the time of my own sisters death, I was not aware of any major illnesses of mine but in the nine years that have passed I have been operated on for cancer twice--colon cancer 3 and 1/2 years ago and lung cancer in September of 2014. My experiences reminds me of the saying in the community that some people with no current disabilities are "temporarily able."

I have not seen the whole movie yet but these excerpts had me crying, and I definitely want to see the whole film now that I have read the book.

I have not scene the movie yet but this scene was very touching in the book.

Have you ever been asked to help your sibling in a way that might be detrimental to yourself?