HP Wellborn, pages 181-190
​
Caroline, my sister, was for many years a mystery to me. She raised two kids while traveling the world with her Army husband. When he retired they moved to the same town in Mississippi where we were raised.
She began to dissolve into her southern wilds after broad travels that seemed to change her. Her childhood friend, JoWare, called every day, admonished her about losing weight, and when she was dying of liver cancer fed her biscuits cut with the old juice glass that JoWare's mother had given Caroline when she married.
​
In the time of her return to Hattiesburg, things between us began to change.
​
She listened with interest to the struggles my Central American families had while raising the children I was teaching. We began a quiet movement toward each other. My antagonism toward her began to dissipate when she started to listen.
I began thinking about the story of the prodigal son and his return to the party of the fated pig. I realized that she lived out my parents lives for them and also for me. That gift allowed me to find my truest self.
I am to this day still grateful for her gift and miss her every day. The shared history we had is gone with her dying. There is no laughter like that with a sister who knew the same parents but from different families because we were born 10 years apart. We thought the same things were funny and we shared our sense of humor for long periods on the phone.
I made this work to celebrate her gift to me of living out my parents lies and "staying home". (I notice that I wrote my parents lies" instead of parents lives and I leave it as it came out.)"to my darlin Caroline, love princess"
​
​
Click on image, then on to enlarge.
