On October 17, 2026, we had a "Celebration of Life" for Caroline. It was beautiful and so nice to see family come together to remember her.
I hadn't ever been to a funeral where there wasn't a viewing, casket or body to say goodbye to. Caroline's family thought it best to cremate her. We still wanted to make sure she was remembered for who she was. She was an amazing woman, mother, daughter, friend, and sister. I was glad that Verity's ward was able to help put together this service. Below I will put my talk and my sister, Verity's talk. What's crazy is hearing things you completely forgot about. Then you hear someone talk about it and bring it up. The memories it brings it so wonderful and heartwarming.
After the funeral service, that's what I'm calling it because that's what it was even though it says "celebration of life", Verity's ward put together a luncheon. The food and women there were wonderful. It's always good to see community come together, even though the reason is hard.
I am going to put the talks that Verity and I did from the funeral. That way it gives you some more information about Caroline. I wanted to put SO MUCH into my talk. But I only had 10 minutes. It's easy to talk for that amount of time when you are talking about someone you love and grew up with and have a decades of experiences with.
Meredith
Caroline – The Sister We Loved
One of the blessings of family is that we get to be a part of each other’s lives in a way that shapes us.
Some of my earliest memories are of sharing a room with Caroline. I have always loved that we got to share that part of our childhood, and I have often said that I think it is one of the reasons we share so many similar personality traits. When you grow up sharing a space with someone, you learn so much from them, sometimes without even realizing it. You pick up little habits, ways of thinking, and pieces of their personality that become part of your own.
Caroline was part of my life long before either of us could understand what that would mean. She was my sister, but she was also someone who helped shape the person I am today. So many of my memories, lessons, and experiences are woven together with hers, and those are things that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
Today, I want to share some of those memories and experiences, and honor the sister we loved.
When I think about Caroline growing up, one of the first things that comes to mind is that she was a teacher in the very best way. She was outgoing and sassy, stubborn and feisty, kind and creative. She had strong opinions, wasn’t afraid to share them, and had a way of making things interesting wherever she went. She taught me so much, sometimes through her advice and sometimes simply through the way she lived.
One memory that has always stayed with me is my first girls’ camp. I was being bullied, and Caroline brought me into her cabin with the older girls. She made room for me when I needed it most. I got to sit and watch the girls put together their skit and feel included in a way I hadn’t been feeling with the girls my own age. And because Caroline was Caroline, it wasn’t all serious. That night, we pulled a prank using stage makeup to make it look like a twig had gotten into her leg. I can’t remember if we managed to scare anyone or trick anyone with it, but it was so much fun. Plus I got to sleep in Caroline’s cabin.
It’s a memory that makes me smile, but it also means something more to me. At a time when I was feeling left out and hurt, my sister brought me in. She gave me a place to belong. She made me feel safe, and she gave me a memory that I could look back on with happiness instead of only remembering how hard that experience had been.
I don’t know if she realized how much that meant to me, but I have never forgotten it.
Caroline was also the person who helped me navigate some of those bigger life decisions, particularly when it came to dating. She taught me to go on as many dates as I could, and get those free dinners, and not to settle for someone who didn’t meet my standards. Looking back, I appreciate that advice even more. She wanted me to know my worth. She wanted me to experience life and give myself the chance to find the right person.
And, as it turns out, Caroline had a pretty significant part in that story, too.
She is the reason I went to Virginia with her, where I ended up meeting Tyler. It’s a little incredible to think about how many things in our lives can be traced back to one decision, one trip, or one experience we might not have thought much about at the time. Going to Virginia was one of those moments for me. It became part of the story of my own family, and I wouldn’t have that part of my life without Caroline.
Caroline’s influence on my life didn’t stop once I met Tyler. She was part of some of the most important moments that followed, including my wedding day. She did my hair and makeup for my wedding, and she made my bouquet, the corsages, and the boutonnieres. She used her creativity and talents to help make that day beautiful. Those weren’t just tasks she checked off a list. They were ways she showed up for me, sharing what she was good at to make one of the biggest days of my life special.
When I look back on that day, I am grateful that she was part of it in such a personal way. She wasn’t just there to watch me begin a new chapter. She helped create the beauty of the day. She was good at that. Creating beauty in everything she did, everywhere she went.
One of the remarkable things about Caroline is her many talents and how she found ways to use them in the lives of the people she loved.
Later, when Caroline moved to Utah while I was living in Rexburg, Idaho, I would go visit her and take Ridge and Delaney. Those visits gave me a chance to spend time with my sister, but they also gave my children memories with their aunt that I will always treasure.
In her Utah house, underneath the basement staircase, there was a little hideaway that Ridge and Delaney liked to play in. It was fun, but a pretty boring little space to look at. However, the next time we visited, Caroline had transformed it into a magical space by painting a mural and adding special toys. That was Caroline. She could look at an ordinary, forgotten little space and imagine what it could become. Then she would put in the time and effort to make that imagination come to life. She didn’t just let Ridge and Delaney come over to visit. She created a wonderful little world for them to enjoy.
And, of course, she had a few lessons to teach them, too. Caroline helped teach Ridge and Delaney that vegetables were a whole lot more enjoyable when accompanied by a hefty serving of ranch dressing. She also got them to like pickles! She was so good at getting kids, but especially mine, to try something new.
Those might seem like small, frivolous things, but I love that I have those memories. Even now, the thought of my kids eating their veggies with ranch makes me smile because I can connect it back to their aunt.
I love that she helped create those little traditions and preferences that became part of their childhood. Those are the kinds of memories that stay with a family. They show up at dinner tables and in conversations, in little habits and funny stories that get told again and again.
And I think that is how Caroline gave so much of herself to the people around her. Sometimes it was through something big, like helping with my wedding. Sometimes it was through something creative, like transforming a space beneath a staircase into a magical place. And sometimes it was simply introducing children to the wonders of ranch dressing and pickles!
She made things special in her own way. When I think about all the different things Caroline was, the list is long. She was a teacher, a friend, a mother, a wife, an artist, and a musician, to name a few. And when it comes to music, I have always thought, and still think, that she was the best pianist and sight reader I have ever known.
She had talents and abilities that amazed me. She could create beauty with her hands, bring music to life, and make things feel special for the people around her. She had her own personality, her own opinions, and her own way of doing things. She was wonderfully, unmistakably Caroline.
She filled so many roles in her life, and each one mattered. She touched people in different ways, and each person here has their own memories of who she was to them.
But of all the things Caroline was, the one that meant the most to me was that she was my sister.
Before she was the person who helped me with my wedding, she was the girl who shared a room with me. Before she was the aunt who created a little magic with a paint brush, she was the big sister who made room for me in her cabin when I needed somewhere to belong. Before I understood how much one trip to Virginia would change my life, she was the sister who invited me along.
All of those other things are part of her story, but being her sister is part of mine.
I think that is one of the hardest things about losing someone who has been part of your life for so long. You don’t just miss the person you got to be when you were with them. You miss the familiar parts of your relationship, the ordinary moments, and the comfort of knowing they are there.
I will miss having more opportunities to learn from Caroline. I will miss being able to share new experiences with her and watching her create things I never could have imagined. I will miss the possibility of more visits, more conversations, and more memories that we haven’t even had the chance to make yet. But I am grateful for the memories we do have. I am grateful for the room we shared, the lessons she taught me, the mischief we got into, the advice she gave me, the beauty she created for my wedding and the special memories she made with my children.
I am grateful that she helped shape the person I am today. I am grateful that she was part of the story of how I met Tyler and built my family. And I am grateful that my children got to know her, to experience her creativity, and to carry their own memories of their aunt.
My faith reminds me that death is not the end, and I find comfort in the hope that our relationships with the people we love are not limited to this life. Hope doesn’t make missing her any easier today. But I am grateful for my testimony of Jesus Christ and for the promise of eternal families.
Caroline helped shape the person I am, and that is something death cannot take away. I will continue to carry pieces of her with me. I hope I can pass some of those pieces on to my children, too: her creativity, her willingness to make room for others, her determination, her sense of humor, and her ability to make ordinary things extraordinary.
Caroline, thank you for being my sister. Thank you for teaching me, for looking out for me, for making me laugh and being silly with me, and for being part of so many of the moments that made me who I am.
I wish we had more time. But I will always be grateful for the time we had.
I love you, Caroline, and I will always be grateful that I got to be your sister.
Verity:
Caroline-The Joy she Gave
When my sisters and I were deciding what each of us would talk about today, we divided up Caroline’s life into a few different pieces.
Mom is talking about the girl we knew. Berit talked about the woman Caroline became. Meredith talked about the sister we loved. And I was get to share some of the joy she gave.
And I think that is probably the right topic for me, because when I think about Caroline, I don't just think about the hard things or even the big things.
I think about the ordinary things.
The little things that, at the time, just felt like life. And now I realize those were some of the greatest gifts she gave me. When the Bingham's moved to San Tan, we started having these family dinners. And I didn't realize at the time what a gift those dinners would become.
Of course I knew Caroline. She was my sister. I had known her my whole life. But getting to have her nearby, getting to spend ordinary time with her, gave me the chance to know her in a different way. I got to know Caroline not just as my sister, but as a woman, as a friend, and as an individual.
I got to see the things she loved, the things she was good at, the things that made her laugh, the things she cared deeply about. I’m going to share a few of the things I learned from her.
Our sister Caroline was never in a hurry.
I don't think I ever saw her rush to leave our house after a family dinner.
She would be perfectly happy sitting out back getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, talking or being silent, hanging out, or pruning my tomato plants.
She would just go with the flow. There was always time for one more conversation. One more story, one more joke. I think there is something really profound about realizing that now.
I wish I had known. I wish I had known she was going to leave us so soon. I wish I had known the last time I saw her awake was going to be the last time. I wish I had known there were conversations we wouldn’t get to have.
Because I would have done more. I would have stayed longer, I would have asked more questions, I would have sat in the backyard a little longer.
That's one of the strange gifts of grief. It forces us to see the value in things we didn't realize were treasures while we lived them.
Those family dinners were precious. Her sitting in my backyard was precious. Her pruning my tomato plants was precious. The fact that she never seemed to be in a hurry was precious. I just didn't know it yet.
Caroline also taught me a lot of little things that I will carry with me.
She was an incredible canner. She could take something she had canned herself and somehow turn it into an amazing meal. She taught me how to take leftovers and make something new out of them. That did not come naturally to me. Caroline could look at a fridge full of random things and see dinner. I could look at that same fridge and see nothing!
And now every time I pull something out of the freezer or try to figure out what to do with leftovers, I will think of her. When I load up leftovers in gallon size ziploc bags, I’ll think of her!
Caroline was such a musician. She was also incredibly talented at the piano. When Caroline would come over, I would find some new sheet music and ask her to play it—she would sit down and play it perfectly. It seemed so normal because she made it look so easy.
But it wasn't normal. She was just that talented. I loved getting to see that part of her feel no shame for making her play non stop at times.
Caroline was brave. Often a little too brave—she had something we called roof tag. I’m amazed I was invited to this because I was so young at the time, but she told me one day that she was going to invite me somewhere and I had to be cool about it. She had us climb onto the roof of Carson Junior High School and we legitimately played tag in the middle of the night.
After tag, they jumped into the pool and swim after hours. I still can’t believe this happened. I know we got in trouble, but what a memory to have!
That was Caroline. She was adventurous. She was willing to try things. She wasn't afraid of much. When I was little, Caroline would let me stay in her room and listen to scary stories program that played weekly on the radio. (Segue—now we all like true crime, thanks Caroline)
And when the program was over, I wasn't ready to sleep because I'd be too scared to move because naturally we listened with the lights off. I’m spooking myself just by thinking of it right now.
So Caroline would find a station, and we would listen to 90s grunge music until I finally felt safe enough to go to bed. She didn't necessarily make the scary thing go away. She just stayed with me until I wasn't scared anymore.
I think that says a lot about Caroline. She had a way of making people feel like they weren't alone.
She loved her people fiercely. Anyone who knows Caroline knows when I say fiercely, I mean fiercely.
If someone hurt one of her people, Caroline would defend first and understand later--sometimes she might offend first and understand later, too. She could be brash. She could speak before thinking. She could make mistakes. She had strong opinions and was never particularly shy about sharing them--and underneath all of that was a person who cared deeply.
If you were one of Caroline's people, you knew it. You knew she loved you. You knew she would show up for you. Watching her interact with all the kids (her own, and also the nieces and nephews that are on the young end) knew it.
She loved the kids. She played with them. She spoiled them, she let them make messes and take up space. She listened to them and made them feel important.
And I know they will remember that.
She wanted her children to grow up in a world where they didn't feel judged. She wanted them to feel loved for exactly who they were. I certainly think that desire came from knowing what it felt like to care deeply and to want the people you love to be okay.
Caroline was also one of the biggest supporters of my Botox business from the very beginning.
She was my model. She let me try new things on her first and always without hesitation. And when I made mistakes, she laughed. Although, to be fair, after some of the Botox treatments, it was sometimes hard to tell if she was laughing. So maybe I shouldn't say that. (lol) She was always willing to support me, even when what I was doing was new or uncertain. She believed in me.
Caroline loved the water. Never have I ever heard her deny swimming due to having clean hair, being tired—nothing. She loved paddle boarding and was on a Facebook group dedicated to people who didn’t want to paddleboard alone. People could post and others would join. She loved this hobby so much.
She could make an ordinary afternoon feel like an adventure just by being willing to go. These are the things that don't seem important until suddenly they are everything.
The family dinners. The backyard, the pool. The piano. The leftovers. The tomato plants. The stories. The music.
Her voice on Marco Polo. I am so grateful for Marco Polo because we will get to hear Caroline's voice for years.
There is something about hearing someone's actual voice that makes them feel close and I am grateful I will have that.
I am also grateful that when Caroline was awake, I still got to conspire with her. I told her about the Olive Garden dinner I was going to help smuggle into the hospital for her.
It wasn't a profound goodbye, and it wasn't the most ideal or perfect last conversation--It was just me talking to my sister about Olive Garden.
And honestly, it hurts but I that's okay; I’ve learned the last thing doesn't have to be profound. Love doesn't need a perfect goodbye. It’s all the ordinary things that happened before it.
Our conversations. Our themed family dinners. All the jokes and every single time we said, "I'll see you later," never imagining that someday so soon there wouldn't be a later.
One of the hardest things about losing Caroline is that life doesn't stop.
We're still mothers. We're still wives. There are still lunches to pack. Dinners to make. Laundry to fold. Questions to answer. Homework. Rides to and from school and all the endless activities. Appointments. People who need us.
At times it has felt wrong to be doing ordinary things when something so enormous has happened. I think Caroline would understand that, she would want us to keep living.
Not because we aren't grieving and not because she wasn't important, because she was. Loving her doesn't mean we stop living. It means we carry her with us while we do. I have a lot of hope and faith that this life is not the end. I don't know exactly what happens after this life. I don't pretend to know every detail of what Caroline is experiencing now.
I believe in a Heavenly Father who loves His children. I believe that Jesus Christ overcame death. I believe that families can be eternal. I have so much hope that this separation is not forever. I have hope that I will see my sister again.
And until then, our job is to remember her by the way she lived. I don't want the last weeks of Caroline's life to become the biggest thing I remember about her.
I want to remember her sitting at my piano. I want to remember her in my backyard. I want to remember her pruning my tomato plants. I want to remember her cackle laugh. I want to remember her swimming. I want to remember her on a paddleboard. I want to remember her calm reaction after we floated the salt river for several hours and later found out the keys slipped out of Thaddeus’s pocket—we were stranded and she was the cool and calm anchor.
I want to remember her making something amazing out of leftovers. I want to remember her laughing at my Botox mistakes. I want to remember her voice. I want to remember her with the kids. I want to remember the girl she was, the woman she became, the sister she was to us, and the joy she gave.
I do wish Caroline could see us now. I think she would be embarrassed by us for how much we're crying. She'd probably have something to say about all of this.
I also know she would be touched. I hope she could see how deeply she was loved. That is what I want to take from all of this.
Joy isn't only found in the big moments. It’s sitting in the backyard with your sister; it's a song played perfectly on the piano; it's a family dinner that lasts a little too long; it's a child being spoiled by their aunt; it's swimming; it's a ridiculous and never-ending adventure with a friend drinking and hating kombucha
Sometimes it's a voice on the phone; it's someone sitting beside you while you're scared, not removing the fear, but removing the loneliness.
Those things didn't feel extraordinary when they were happening, they were just our life. That was the joy Caroline gave me and now I want to live a little differently because of her.
I want to stay a little longer. I want to make something out of what I have. I want to love my people fiercely. I want to pay attention to the ordinary moments. I want to try not to be in such a hurry to leave--there won’t always time for one more conversation, or one more story.
I am so grateful that I got to have Caroline as my sister. I will always be thankful she moved back to Arizona so we could grow a relationship we didn’t have previously.
I am grateful for the girl we knew, for the woman she became, for the sister we loved, and most of all, for the joy she gave.
I love you, Caroline, and I will carry that joy with me until I see you again.
