My Sister Dilly

By Maureen Lang

Description:

Two sisters. One committed the unthinkable. One will never forgive herself.

Hannah Williams couldn’t get out of her small hometown fast enough, preferring the faster pace, trendy lifestyle and beauty of California’s Pacific Ocean coast.
Only when her younger sister, Dilly, makes a desperate choice does Hannah realize she never should have left her behind in rural Illinois.
Hannah returns home, anxious to atone for failing Dilly in the past, leaving the one man she's ever loved in California. But Dilly is a changed woman, and when Hannah’s plans don’t go as expected, the bonds of sisterhood are tested like never before.

Book Takeaway:

This book is all about forgiveness. Forgiving others and ourselves. Receiving forgiveness from God and from family. Second chances. And sisters. It's also about how valuable everyone is, even the most handicapped of us.

Awards:

Why the author wrote this book:

I was told the true story of a mom who did the unthinkable. Struggling with around the clock care for a severely handicapped child, no support and a mate who was repeatedly unfaithful, she tried taking her own life. Only she knew she couldn't leave her daughter behind. Who would take care of her? So she put phenobarbital in the feeding tube to take her daughter along with her in death. And failed on both counts - both survived. When I heard the story, I knew two things: it would make a dramatic novel and I most definitely did NOT want to write it. Being a mom to a handicapped child myself, I didn't want to get inside the head of a woman who became so desperate to do such a thing. But . . . I felt God nudging me to write the story anyway, maybe because I'm the mom to a handicapped child. And maybe I didn't want to get inside her head, but could I get inside her sister's? And so My Sister Dilly was born.