For Opal, family is a somewhat difficult subject. While she loves her father (whom she refers to as “the preacher” in her mind and in her narration), he is somewhat neglectful in important ways. When combined with the fact that Opal’s mother, Mama, left the preacher and Opal seven years ago, it’s clear that Opal has every reason to feel abandoned and neglected. As Opal makes friends in Naomi, Florida, convinces the preacher to talk about Mama, and learns about the family situations of her friends, Opal must come to a difficult conclusion: though the novel suggests that family is often marked by loss of some sort, it’s still important to focus on and celebrate those family members, both blood and chosen, who are around.
As soon as Opal begins telling Winn-Dixie about Mama and shares what the church ladies say about the preacher (that he’s still in love with Mama and hopes she’ll come back), it becomes clear that Opal similarly focuses on what she doesn’t have in her family: a mother to care for her. This, she implies, is the reason why she’s the one making grocery runs, and it’s why the preacher is so sad. Both Opal and the preacher blame their unhappiness on Mama’s absence. While it’s important to not minimize the grief and trauma that both Opal and the preacher clearly experience as a result of Mama’s departure, Opal eventually realizes that nearly everyone else in the small town of Naomi has also suffered loss of some sort. Some individuals, like the pet shop employee Otis and the old lady Gloria Dump, live alone and never mention their families, leaving it up to the reader to decide if they have families and simply don’t talk about them or if they’re truly alone. Others, like Miss Franny Block, mention their families—but all her family members are long dead. Even Amanda, a “pinched-face” girl Opal’s age, has experienced loss: last summer, her little brother, Carson, drowned in the river.
None of these situations are intended to make anyone else’s fractured family situation seem better or worse. Rather, by offering such an array of families who have all been touched by loss, DiCamillo makes the case that loss is a normal part of a family—and indeed, part of being human. The revelation that Amanda is still grieving the loss of her little brother is what helps Opal decide to try to befriend Amanda; she recognizes that they’re going through similar processes of grief and may have more in common than she initially thought. Familial loss, in this case, can be a precursor to friendship. However, almost more important is the way that Opal’s relationship with Gloria helps her to learn more about Mama and herself. When the preacher agrees to tell Opal 10 things about Mama, one thing he mentions is that Mama hated being a preacher’s wife and turned to alcohol to deal with her unhappiness. At a previous point in her life, Gloria was an alcoholic as well, and she provides a valuable window for Opal into what it’s like to deal with that kind of addiction. Though Opal doesn’t necessarily make the connection, Gloria’s story implies that while Mama’s departure has undeniably hurt Opal and the preacher, Mama would’ve been wildly unhappy had she stayed. Gloria quietly makes the case that Mama’s alcoholism was a symptom of something much worse, and it could’ve wrought far more damage on the family had Mama stayed. Sometimes, the novel suggests, it’s necessary for people to experience some sort of loss in order to be able to heal.
Indeed, the preacher and Opal only begin to heal when, finally surrounded by friends who care about them, they speak openly and emotionally about Mama. Most importantly, Opal finally begins to take to heart the preacher’s earlier insistence that Mama didn’t just leave Opal—she left them. In other words, the preacher wants Opal to understand that she isn’t the problem; she did nothing wrong and she didn’t cause Mama to leave. Rather, Mama chose to step out of their family forever because she was unhappy—and now, the preacher and Opal must figure out how to form a family in the present, with the two of them and Winn-Dixie. While the novel ends before Opal and the preacher return home to begin the work of figuring out their mended relationship, their truthful and emotional conversation about Mama offers hope that it is possible for them to heal from Mama’s loss and move forward into the future. Their family may be marred by the loss of Mama, but this doesn’t mean that they have to dwell on it and make it the center point of their lives—they have each other and Winn-Dixie, which is a lot to be thankful for. Thus, the novel ends by insisting that when it comes to family, what’s most important is to honor and take care of the family members that one does have, whether that family is made up of one’s blood family or one’s friends. If one does this, it’s impossible for loss to define a family entirely.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Family and Loss ThemeTracker
Family and Loss Quotes in Because of Winn-Dixie
My daddy is a good preacher and a nice man, but sometimes it’s hard for me to think about him as my daddy, because he spends so much time preaching or thinking about preaching or getting ready to preach. And so, in my mind, I think of him as “the preacher.”
“He won’t talk to me about her at all. I want to know more about her. But I’m afraid to ask the preacher; I’m afraid he’ll get mad at me.”
Winn-Dixie looked at me hard, like he was trying to say something.
“What?” I said.
He stared at me.
“You think I should make the preacher tell me about her?”
Winn-Dixie looked at me so hard he sneezed.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
“Number ten,” he said with a long sigh, “number ten, is that your mama loved you. She loved you very much.”
“But she left me,” I told him.
“She left us,” said the preacher softly. I could see him pulling his old turtle head back into his stupid turtle shell. “She packed her bags and left us, and she didn’t leave one thing behind.”
I went right back to my room and wrote down all ten things that the preacher had told me. I wrote them down just the way he said them to me so that I wouldn’t forget them, and then I read them out loud to Winn-Dixie until I had them memorized. I wanted to know those ten things inside and out. That way, if my mama ever came back, I could recognize her, and I would be able to grab her and hold on to her tight and not let her get away from me again.
And none of them wanted to be my friend anyway because they probably thought I’d tell on them to the preacher for every little thing they did wrong; and then they would get in trouble with God and their parents. So I told God that I was lonely, even having Winn-Dixie.
She sighed. “I imagine I’m the only one left from those days. I imagine I’m the only one that even recalls that bear. All my friends, everyone I knew when I was young, they are all dead and gone.”
She sighed again. She looked sad and old and wrinkled. It was the same way I felt sometimes, being friendless in a new town and not having a mama to comfort me. I sighed, too.
All of a sudden, I felt happy. I had a dog. I had a job. I had Miss Franny Block for a friend. And I had my first invitation to a party in Naomi. It didn’t matter that it came from a five-year-old and the party wasn’t until September. I didn’t feel so lonely anymore.
All of a sudden it was hard for me to talk. I loved the preacher so much. I loved him because he loved Winn-Dixie. I loved him because he was going to forgive Winn-Dixie for being afraid. But most of all, I loved him for putting his arm around Winn-Dixie like that, like he was already trying to keep him safe.
I waved at the woman on the porch and she waved back, and I watched Sweetie Pie run off to tell her mama about Otis being a magic man. It made me think about my mama and how I wanted to tell her the story about Otis charming all the animals. I was collecting stories for her.
I stayed where I was and studied the tree. I wondered if my mama, wherever she was, had a tree full of bottles; and I wondered if I was a ghost to her, the same way she sometimes seemed like a ghost to me.
And I got real good at holding on to Winn-Dixie whenever they came. I held on to him and comforted him and whispered to him and rocked him, just the same way he tried to comfort Miss Franny when she had her fits. Only I held on to Winn-Dixie for another reason, too. I held on to him tight so he wouldn’t run away.
It all made me think about Gloria Dump. I wondered who comforted her when she heard those bottles knocking together, those ghosts chattering about the things she had done wrong. I wanted to comfort Gloria Dump. And I decided that the best way to do that would be to read her a book, read it to her loud enough to keep the ghosts away.
“And the army took him, and Littmus went off to war, just like that. Left behind his mother and three sisters. He went off to be a hero. But he soon found out the truth.” Miss Franny closed her eyes and shook her head.
“What truth?” I asked her.
“Why, that war is hell,” Miss Franny said with her eyes still closed. “Pure hell.”
I got up out of bed and unwrapped a Littmus Lozenge and sucked on it hard and thought about my mama leaving me. That was a melancholy feeling. And then I thought about Amanda and Carson. And that made me feel melancholy, too. Poor Amanda. And poor Carson. He was the same age as Sweetie Pie. But he would never get to have his sixth birthday party.
I swept the floor real slow that day. I wanted to keep Otis company. I didn’t want him to be lonely. Sometimes, it seemed like everybody in the world was lonely. I thought about my mama.
“There ain’t no way you can hold on to something that wants to go, you understand? You can only love what you got while you got it.”
I kept on going over the list in my head. I memorized it the same way I had memorized the list of ten things about my mama. I memorized it so if I didn’t find him, I would have some part of him to hold on to. But at the same time, I thought of something I had never thought of before; and that was that a list of things couldn’t even begin to show somebody the real Winn-Dixie, just like a list of ten things couldn’t ever get me to know my mama.
“But do you know what? I just realized something, India Opal. When I told you your mama took everything with her, I forgot one thing, one very important thing that she left behind.”
“What?” I asked.
“You,” he said. “Thank God your mama left me you.” And he hugged me tighter.
“Mama,” I said, just like she was standing right beside me, “I know ten things about you, and that’s not enough, that’s not near enough. But Daddy is going to tell me more; I know he will, now that he knows you’re not coming back. He misses you and I miss you, but my heart doesn’t feel empty anymore. It’s full all the way up. I’ll still think about you, I promise. But probably not as much as I did this summer.”
