Eulogy For Grandmother

“It’s nothing, really honey, it isn’t anything,” my mama, then said doing her best to avoid the question as she continued to lead me back to the top of the stairs. I however stubbornly fought her the whole way. “It’s just some leftover stuff that your grandmother was into that was apparently never cleaned up. I told you about how she was a herbalist and a naturalist, and into all kinds of weird ritualistic medicine.”
“Yeah, right,” I huffed as we finally had made our way to the top of the stairs. My mama staying close behind me so I couldn’t slip past her to go back into the basement.
That stuff looked like Devil worshiping shit to me, I thought as I’d reached the confines of the kitchen, but I dared not say that to my mama. But, at that moment I had made a mental note to sneak back downstairs the first chance I got so I could really check it out. Maybe even take a few pictures of it so I could try to look it up on

the internet. But unfortunately, later on that evening when I had come back from taking a bicycle ride with mama into the village, I had snuck back downstairs to see it again but it was gone. I had suspected that my mama had sent my step daddy to clean it up while we were out.
After coming up from the basement my mama suggested that we should go grab the rest of our belongings from the trailer in an effort to change the subject. We were in the middle of doing just that when my Step Daddy Cade came rolling back up the driveway in the Truckster. Its brakes squeaking loudly like nails on a chalk board announcing his arrival as the car came to a stop just a few feet from us and the trailer. The engine continuing to wheeze and clank for a comically long time after my step daddy had turned off the ignition. It had reminded me of one of those pooped out cartoon cars in an old Disney skit.
“Missed the driveway twice on my way back,” he said to us with a stupid grin on his face as he stuck his head half-way out the window. “Got some chicken for tonight and some corn and they had burgers on sale, so I picked up some of those for tomorrow.”
“That’s great, honey,” my mama said to him before heading back into the trailer to gather up more stuff. “Cera and I are going to check the garage and shed for some bikes so we can take a ride into the village,” she then said as her voice trailed off the further she went into the trailer. “If we don’t find any, can you bring up the ones we saw in the basement?”
“Yeah, I suppose,” Step Daddy Cade replied back to her while shrugging his shoulders as he struggled to carry four bags full of groceries into the house.
As my mama finished gathering things up from the trailer I had walked over to the east end of the house where I found a door on the side of the garage that had been left unlocked. I then used it to gain entry.
Once inside, I searched for a button on the wall next to the door that would engage the automatic opener. After finding and pushing it, a single light blinked on and then a needing to be badly greased motor came lumbering to life with a series of small squeaks and clangs as it brought up the massive garage door.
Sunlight instantly began to pour into the garage illuminating the sleek, jet-black Cadillac that sat abandoned in the center of the room. Its smooth curves and polished rims made it look like a caged animal just waiting for someone to get behind its wheel and take off down the highway. And, I’m pretty sure I knew just who that someone will be too. It surely wasn’t as fast as the Trans Am, but by the look of it, I bet it could have hauled ass.
After checking out the car I looked around and saw that the rear wall of the garage seemed lined with cabinets. As I began digging through them, I found that they were mostly filled with old cans of paint and slightly rusted up hand tools that I had assumed must have belonged to my grandfather. There were also some electrical cords, a couple of garden hoses, and a big-ass bag of fertilizer along with an electric hedge shear that hung on the wall by a hook, but no bicycles.
I had better luck in the shed though… where I found a couple of mountain bikes that were a lot newer than the two in the basement. I wasn’t sure to whom they had belonged to, but then I thought, Maybe they were my grandmother’s? Judging from the pictures I had seen in the house of her, she wasn’t all that old. Maybe, she had an affliction for tearing up the trails that surely mapped these woods just like Grandma Singer would have done if she lived here.
I began pulling the bikes out from the shed, and it wasn’t long before I started hearing the faint sounds of meowing coming from somewhere near the back of the structure. Curious about what had made the sound—as if it could have been anything other than a cat—I began moving the dusty, tattered boxes filled with lawn ornaments and yard equipment. I wanted them out of my way so I could get closer to the area from where I thought I heard the sound emanating.
As I dove deeper into the shed objects that were hanging from the walls and rafters began to fall on me.

Which then caused me to stub my toe on a ladder that been leaning up against the far wall which then caused me to swear out in pain.
But it was just before I had reached the back of the shed, when suddenly a white and orange cat shot-out passed me, weaving in and out of the tangles of debris and going right through my legs.
The cat had startled me something awful, and when I turned around to see where it had gone, to my surprise it was still there, right behind me now just sitting on the lawn. It was staring at me intensely with its hazel eyes, and to me it was like looking at a ghost.
Just then, for a reason unbeknownst to me, I thought of the little boy from down the street, the one whom stuck his tongue out at me. How deeply he had stared at me when my family and I drove past him.
“I see you’ve made a friend,” a voice said from behind me and I turned around to see that it was my mama walking up from the

house.
“Yeah, I guess so,” I answered.
Cautiously, I approached the cat not wanting to scare it off or give it any reason to bite me for that matter. As I advanced closer, it let out a brief meow as I reached out my hand for it, but other than that it didn’t show any other outward signs that it felt threatened by either me or my mama.