FAMILY
UNDERTAKING
your community or family. You can get
mentally and physically exhausted.”
HUFFINGTON
03.03.13
her presence. I wanted to talk to her.”
Alison was alone with her mother only
for a few minutes. “I was self-conscious
Alison admits that Caroline’s funeral
because people kept on coming in. But
was tiring.
I got to touch her hand briefly. She was
Growing up as the youngest sibling in
very cold. And it was a reminder that it
a big Southern Baptist family in Louisiwas only her body.”
ana, she had seen lots of death and had
So when Caroline died, Alison spoke
been to plenty of traditional funerals.
to her every day, sometimes every hour.
But even though they were
She wrote entries in an onphysically easier than services
line journal to remember how
“I
wanted
for her daughter, she found
Caroline’s death felt and to
to
have
a
them to be emotionally inexplain her decision to family
little
last
complete events (especially so
and friends: “I told Caroline
time
to
when her parents died).
that if she knew what a froube
in
her
“My father died from bladfrou outfit I had her in she’d
presence.
der cancer when I was 16.
be giving me the business.
I
wanted
to
And I just didn’t know what
We compromised in that I let
talk
to
her.”
I needed at the time to grieve
her stay barefoot under her
for him,” she says. “And when
big skirt. The girl never liked
my mother died — the same year I was
shoes ... There were a few changes in Carpregnant with Caroline — it was just this oline’s body over the next two days, not
huge social event.”
many, and they served to remind us that
Her mother’s funeral was held back
this was only her body, that her spirit had
home in Shreveport at a large church
been released. Everyone had time to sit
designed to seat a few thousand, with
with her, read to her ... I frequently found
a reception before, a reception after,
myself running into her room to tell her
and lots of talking among hundreds of
what I was doing, and it felt so natural.”
guests in between.
Before Caroline left the house, the par“There were so many family friends I
ents took her sister, Kate, into the room
hadn’t seen in years. People just kept on
where she was held. “We’re saying bye to
coming to say, ‘Hi,’ and, ‘You’ve got to see Caroline’s body,” they told her. “But she
this cousin and that cousin.’ I just wantwill always be your sister and she wi