She had always lived right here in Saraland with us… so, of course, I was a bit confused. After having wiped away my tears with the palms of my hands, I’d asked my mama, “What do you mean? You said Grandma Singer is dead.” I say this to her as my chest continues to hitch and I do my best at keeping another sob from creeping up into my throat. At the time I remembered having felt a little embarrassed over my sobbing. Not that it isn’t okay to cry when somebody dies, of course. It’s just that… I’m no wimp, and I have never liked letting people see me cry, not even my parents. “No, Cera,” my mama, then says to me in a soft tone. “Grandma Singer’s just fine. It’s my mother, your Grandma Barrett, who has died.” Now, I don’t want to sound like I’m coming off as a cold-hearted bitch here, but Wahoo! Grandma Barrett… Who-the-hell cares. I had never even met the old buzzard. I had only seen one wallet-sized picture of her, and the quality of the photo was sketchy at best. As far as I’d been concerned this wasn’t even going to put the slightest of dents in my weekend plans at …show more content…
A year or two after I was born, she meets my Step Daddy Cade at a Phish show while I was apparently dancing for a crowd of onlookers. One of which happened to be my Step Daddy Cade, and they’ve been together ever since. Really though, I guess you could say my mama’s story isn’t all that uncommon now that I’ve thought about it. It’s the same one that gets played out over-and-over again, especially here in Saraland. And, as I grew up in Alabama, I saw this same thing happen to some of the girls in-and-around my hometown quite-a-bit. It even eventually happened to my friend Lettie Sheppard, and I had already told you about my friend Amanda and her baby Jeremy. So at this point, like I said, my mama hugs me again and then asks me if I’m gonna be alright, and I tell her, “Yes, I’m fine.” I then let my tongue slip by telling her that since I’d never met Grandma Lyanna, so… And I didn’t want to say, so her dying is really no big deal to me, but honestly that’s kind of how I felt. I was sixteen. I was self-involved. That’s how all sixteen-year-olds think,