The Life We Choose - by A Embry Burrus (Paperback)

About the Book

Growing up as the sibling of someone with Down syndrome, author Embry Burrus was never really aware of her sister Margaret's disability. While writing down childhood memories to preserve Margaret's story for future generations, Burrus gained some startling insights into the lives of her parents, and most unexpectedly into her own life.

Book Synopsis

Growing up as the sibling of someone with Down syndrome, author Embry Burrus was never really aware of her sister Margaret's disability. While writing down childhood memories to preserve Margaret's story for future generations, Burrus gained some startling insights into her parents' lives, and most unexpectedly into her own life. With humor and candor, Burrus examines how her sister has impacted, and continues to impact, those who have been fortunate enough to get to know Margaret. According to Burrus, "Margaret's heart knows no judgment, no deceit, and no hatred. She is a beautiful, perfect example of all that is good in this world." The world could certainly benefit from more of that.

Review Quotes

Burrus writes candidly and with a heaping dose of humor about the adventures of growing up with a disabled sister and of their daily interactions with their aging mother. Two of the most marginalized communities in our country are the disabled and the aging - the very people Burrus spotlights in her wonderfully inspirational memoir.

Through the stories of The Life We Choose, Burrus gives us permission to not only look at the disabled and see the aging, but to gaze upon them in an unblinking fashion. To really see them. To hear them. To laugh with them.

Karen Spears Zacharias, author of Christian Bend, Burdy, and Mother of Rain

In The Life We Choose, Embry Burrus eloquently, and often humorously, shares the story of her strong-willed mother who resisted well-meaning pressure to send her newborn baby with Down syndrome straight from the hospital to an institution so as "not to get attached," and her sister, Margaret, who not only defied the odds to learn but also rose above those odds to teach and transform those around her. While telling their story, Burrus begins to better understand her own life, and to see the world, through Margaret's eyes, in a more perfect light.

Marian Carcache, author of The Tongues of Men and Angels and The Moon and the Stars