Anchoring the sky

Carol Kaynor
Wed, 29 Apr 2026 13:46:37 PDT

'Anchoring the Sky' chronicles the narrator's experiences over a period of more than twenty years after her younger sister is diagnosed with cancer, rallies for a short time, and then dies. The narration, which follows a roughly chronological structure with some flashbacks, is divided into three sections. The first section describes the narrator's initial experiences of caregiving in a chaotic household, ending on a note of hope. The second section describes the loss of hope, the sister's death, and the narrator's experiences of intense grief immediately afterward. In the third section, the narrator describes selected moments in a 20-year quest for some sense of resolution over her sister's death. Throughout the story, the narrator vacillates between emotive and objective expression as she struggles to come to terms with both the loss of her sister and with the loss of long-term memories caused by the narrator's own chronic illness. Though she never finds the magical resolution she seeks, she finally finds support and assistance both for her loss of precious memories and her unresolved grief by reconnecting with her family's experiences during her sister's illness and death