Chapter 13-Goodbyes and New Beginnings

In the fall, just a day before Thanksgiving when I was eleven, everything that had started to feel steady again began to crack. We were on our way to Granny’s for a visit during Thanksgiving break when we met Dad and an uncle on the road. Mom rolled down the window, and their faces told us before their words did: Grandaddy was dying.

I wanted to see him so badly—I begged to go. But they made us stay with Aunt Lorraine (Cheri’s mom) while the grown-ups handled what we weren’t allowed to see. I sat on her couch, twisting my hands, waiting for word that never came the way I hoped. When it finally did, the message was quiet and final: he was gone.

My heart broke clean open.

Grandaddy—the man who’d saved us from foster care, who’d let me curl up in his recliner, who’d smelled like Prince Albert tobacco and beer and safety—was lost to me forever. I already missed him when cancer stole his voice. Now his body was gone too. I pictured him in his overalls, paint-stained, work boots scuffed, hat tipped back, patting my knee while the Braves game crackled on the radio. I missed all of it: the way he never rushed me, the quiet way he loved.

The funeral was quiet in a way that felt loud inside my chest.

Grandaddy lay in the casket in his overalls—faded blue, paint-stained in the knees from years of fixing things, work boots polished just enough to look respectful. His hat rested on the lid beside him, like he might still reach for it when no one was looking. He looked peaceful, but not like himself. The man who used to pat my knee and let me sit in his recliner without a word was gone, and what was left was only the shell.

I kept waiting for him to open his eyes, to smile that small, knowing smile and say, “Come here, baby,” the way he always did when I needed to feel small and safe. But his eyes stayed closed. His chest didn’t rise. The Prince Albert tobacco and beer smell that used to wrap around him like a blanket was gone, replaced by the sharp, clean scent of flowers and furniture polish. I hated it. I wanted to climb in and curl up next to him, bury my face in his shirt, breathe him back to life.

My sister stood beside me, quiet, holding my hand so tight her knuckles turned white. I think she was crying, but I couldn’t look at her. If I looked, I’d cry too, and I was afraid if I started I wouldn’t stop. Dad was there, beard thick and long, eyes red, standing a little apart like he didn’t know where to put himself. 

Granny didn’t cry—at least not where we could see. She stood straight, hands folded, staring at the casket like she could will him to sit up and tell her one more Braves score. When the preacher spoke, his voice soft and steady about eternal rest and reunion in heaven, Granny nodded once, slow, like she was agreeing with something she already knew but didn’t want to hear.

I kept thinking about the little things: the way he’d roll a cigarette with one hand while patting my knee with the other, the crackle of the radio when the Braves were playing, the quiet way he’d let me sit in his lap without asking why I was sad. I thought about the mornings he’d let me stay curled up under his arm until the coffee finished perking, never rushing me out. I thought about how he’d saved us—walked into that courthouse and said, “Them’s my babies,” and meant it with every bone in his body.

And now he was gone.

I whispered, “I love you, Grandaddy,” so quiet no one heard but me.

I hoped he did.

When they lowered the casket, I felt something inside me crack wide open. Not loud, not dramatic—just a slow, deep break. The dirt hit the wood with soft thuds, and each one felt like another piece of home being buried.

Afterward, people came by with covered dishes—fried chicken, potato salad, biscuits—things Grandaddy loved. We sat on Granny’s porch, plates balanced on our knees, eating in silence.

That day I learned grief isn’t just sadness.

It’s the sudden absence of someone who made the world feel steady.

It’s the quiet after the radio goes off.

It’s the empty recliner, the missing smell of Prince Albert, the swing that doesn’t rock.

And it’s the promise you make to yourself, standing there with dirt under your nails from throwing a handful of earth:

I’ll carry the good parts of you forward.

I’ll remember the love.

I’ll keep the porch light on.

Even when the shadows get long.

We moved back into our house on Willow Drive—the tenants finally left. It was dirty, painted with ugly tacky colors, full of bugs and rodents that needed fumigating. But it was ours again. Middle school felt great for a while. I was straight-A, joining clubs, in advanced classes, invited to parties, making friends and enjoying the feeling of belonging.

Then ninth grade came, and I’d lost forty pounds over the summer. I was becoming interested in boys, and boys were noticing me. That was confirmed at a local high school football game while visiting Dad and my cousins—someone flirted with me for the first time. I didn’t quite know how to take it. I liked it.

But that same year, my sister Rhonda and I got upset with Mom—probably over some beating for something small and stupid. We both wrote letters to Granny (without knowing the other had done it), venting about how mean she was, how we wanted to go home. I hid mine in a drawer, never intending to mail it. Mom found both letters. In anger, she told us she was sending us both back to Dad’s.

I didn’t want to leave my school, my friends, the place I finally felt I fit. But her and Mike were fighting constantly—screaming, threats, once Mom yelling for a baseball bat so she could beat him with it. My sister and I were afraid not to obey her and afraid if we did, she’d hurt him. We called Aunt Janice and Granny; they called the police. The police sent us home with Granny and Aunt Jan that night and warned Mom: straighten out, or they’d take us away.

Then there were the letters again.

Mom packed us up. We moved back to Dad’s—Betty was gone, little Brandi left behind for us to help care for. I loved her, but I was only fourteen. I just wanted to be a kid.

We changed schools again—for the third time that year.

I was home once more.

But home didn’t feel the same.

Mike had left too—no goodbye, no “keep in touch.” He’d been more of a dad than the one I had, and his leaving carved another quiet wound. I wouldn’t see him again for years. That story waits for another chapter.

I met my first boyfriend living there with my dad… several weeks after enrolling at Villa Rica High School. His name was Eric Sauls—curly blonde hair, tall, beautiful blue eyes. He was my also my first date.  We went to see The Man from Snowy River, and I had my first kiss between classes out in the school courtyard.

My grades started slipping. I felt lost at Dad’s, responsible for a baby sister who needed more than I knew how to give.

But summer was coming.

Good things had a tendency to show up when I’d given up hope.

And I wasn’t even ready for the best one yet.B