When Leonie attempts to employ one of Mam’s healing practices in order to treat Kayla’s sickness, Jojo tells her not to even try, arguing that she is not capable of healing anyone. Furthermore, Jojo implies that not everyone has the ability to be a healer to others. Jojo has a deep respect for Mam’s healing gifts, and is heartbroken to confront their limitations when Mam acknowledges that she was not able to heal herself from cancer. Mam has inherited healing traditions from her ancestors, and has used them for purposes ranging from curing illness to inducing abortion. One important way in which the characters practice care is through healing. This causes them to at times negatively influence each other’s lives, prioritizing getting high over actually practicing the more difficult forms of care that would allow them and their loved ones to grow healthier and happier. Furthermore, Leonie, Michael, Misty, and Al all care for one another in different ways, yet this care is distorted by their use of drugs. Leonie cares for her children, but can also be selfish and resentful of them, causing her to be cruel even at times when she aims to be kind.

Many other characters in the novel also practice unhealthy forms of caregiving, although in almost all cases it is because they care too little or too sporadically, rather than (as in Jojo’s case) too much. Because Jojo has always felt responsible for Kayla, he never got a chance to take care of himself, and it is clear that this aspect of his caring role has had a negative impact on him. Jojo is self-sacrificial in his attentiveness to Kayla, and in this sense his love for her resembles the ideal of sacrificial maternal love more than that of a kind older brother. Although Jojo, unlike Leonie, never expresses resentment or anger toward Kayla, it is clear that the level of care he gives to Kayla at times has a negative impact on his own life. Neglected by Leonie, Jojo is left to take care of Kayla’s needs, and shows a level of devotion to her that at times seems beyond the natural capacity of a thirteen-year-old boy. The person whose care the reader witnesses the most is Jojo.

Sing, Unburied, Sing pays close attention to the daily practice of caring for others, showing this to be both a form of love and a (sometimes punishing) form of labor. In opposition to the important themes of illness, wounds, and death, Sing, Unburied, Sing also deals directly with themes of feeding, healing, and care.

Life in Sing Sing by Number 1500