Cooke Title: No Stone Unturned:
The Carl & Rosie Story
Author: Rosemarie Stone
Publishers: Ian Randle
Reviewer: Mel Cooke
I felt like throwing No Stone Unturned, The Carl and Rosie Story high in the air, cheering and saying "at las' to r...,", when Rosemarie Wignall Stone finally got angry. Not just the peeved as she demands of husband Carl Stone, when he clings to her emotionally after they find out he had AIDS and she has HIV and she demands "... can't you find one friend out of all the women you have had, to talk to? You must have made one friend."
No, she got all out pissed when, a year after he died, she visited dermatologist Dr. Andrea with her daughter, Tricia, and the lady called her in to beam and compliment "The whole medical community is so proud of you ... we all know that Professor Stone died from complications related to AIDS and that you are infected, and we are all so proud of the way you have handled the situation."
Breach of ethics
Still, she did not let the skin specialist have it for this breach of ethics and basic decency ("I was trying to shout but was feeling totally defeated. Tears began to flow freely"), walking out on her. But when she contacted Dr. Barry, a pathologist who had been involved with the Stones since their fateful blood tests, who in turn, spoke to Dr. Andrea, the under the skin specialist wanted to send a conciliatory bouquet.
"I responded with what was left of my strength by using some of Jamaica's choicest words to tell Dr. Andrea where she could stuff her flowers," Stone writes.
And I said finally. Hallelujah. (Well, she had got cross and banned Eddie Seaga from the house after Opposition Leader for life made Carl Stone's illness public in a demand for national honours to be bestowed before he died. But being mad at Eddie does not count. For many, that is a natural reaction).
The encounter captures the strength, patience, will and sheer determination with which Rosemarie Stone has approached an illness that has taken over every aspect of her life and contact with other human beings. It is a simply told but simple story; a highly readable book but still, at points, very hard to read; told without a shred of self-pity but still a pitiful tale.
And my ire at her lack of anger may be a classic case of "she nah spit, but me a vomit", as after a long cleansing shower after the list of infidelity hits, "I felt cleansed of the horror of Carl's infidelity and instead of choosing condemnation I chose forgiveness".
The Carl & Rosie Story sub-title is more hopeful than substantiated in the text, as Carl takes his final exit at the University Chapel one-third through the book. An there is a brief look at how they met and married, it is hardly an in-depth treatise on their betrothal, with the approximately one-year period from diagnosis till death getting detailed concentration. It is definitely Rosie's story, an adult story, from her days as a young trainee teacher at Baxter's Mountain Primary School (a point of self-definition to which she returns) to late 2006. The last line of the book, before the appendices, reinforces her remarkable lack of rancour and love of life, as she writes, "I am saddened by the fact that Carl is not here to share in this joy".
It is in this final chapter that Rosemarie Stone finally addresses the possibility that the infection could have come from her side, as she writes, "The only question that I can answer definitely is that I did not have an affair."
In reading No Stone Unturned, I am aware that I am reading well outside the run-of-the-mill Jamaican life. So, the privacy that the Stones were able to afford and was, to an extent, afforded them, is not commonly (pun intended) available. So, when they went through a series of doctors and end up with a Dr. Barry, who administered the test, I know that it is not the common experience, hence, a dialogue that deadens the tale.
The dialogue, as well as a couple 'oversees' and one reference to 'Homewood High' are my only quibbles with a book where each paragraph is entitled by a Jamaican proverb. Rosemarie Stone kept a journal, hence, the story is highly detailed. Those hoping for juicy sexual details will be sorely disappointed. She does refer to a 14-day European trip where there was a deluge of sexual activity that ensured she would get the virus; to my great chagrin she does not name the women on her husband's list.
Now that would have been something.
Painful moments
The painful moments are naturally many, starting with Carl Stone's scream ("Oh my God, you mean I am not going to live to see my children grow up ... ".) when he is told the diagnosis by Dr. Grace, but none more so than when Rosemarie Stone on a new HIV drug regimen. She writes "there are no words to describe what the first ten days of taking HIV drugs did to my body and my psyche. I went through hell on earth that first day."
Still, with a T-Cell count that went down to two, without her developing AIDS, she is still in some sort of heaven on earth.
The effect of HIV on Rosemarie Stone's relationships is very striking. From the friend who asked her to prepare a ham, but was not sure whether he should eat it, to Dorothy asking her whether she could 'service' (my term) her sex-hungry husband, it verges from the casually cruel to the near ridiculous. And when she restrains herself from touching babies, it shows just how much she withholds herself from humanity.
And being able to afford good medical care (to a point) means that the Stones were above discrimination, one striking example being when a nurse looked at her struggling to take him to the bathroom and did nothing to help.
No Stone Unturned is the story of one woman's encounter with a deadly disease, but not a story of death, even though there is a gut-wrenching account of a very close encounter. It is a story of living and the living.
And it is a darned good one (despite that damned stiff dialogue).
An AIDS fact sheet, one of the appendices, is a very good inclusion.
