I remember the little things, the things that no one else does, the things that when brought up in a conversation gets looks and comments such as “No, it was purple, not yellow” just because that person doesn’t want to admit to having forgotten the color of the flowers. This is both a blessing and a curse in that being a writer it helps when I am doing something descriptive and a curse because I am only a teenager and there for my thoughts on the subject are quickly thrown aside just like the dead yellow flowers. I guess, now that I think about it, my stubbornness doesn’t help much either.

My grandmother died when I was ten. That’s not to long ago for me being only fifteen. I should remember it clearly, right? Nope, not me. I don’t remember what I wore or what my family wore for that matter other than the safe assumption that it was black. I don’t remember what she was in either. I know I didn’t cry. And I remember sitting down in the basement of our funeral home holding a styrofoam cup with sugar and some coffee with my dad sitting next to me with a styrofoam cup half full of pure black liquid. I remember sitting in the front row. I had, and have, gone to a lot of funerals but never before had I sat in the front row. I didn’t, and still don’t, know any of the people’s names who attended even though I see them often. I should. I just don’t. And I remember, more clearly than any thing else, an old lady sitting in the back of the room with a large purple hat. She was old, older than dirt, and as I sat staring at her not caring because I was a ten year old kid, all I could think was ‘she should be in that casket, not Baba’. I saw her in church the following week and she was wearing the large purple hat again. I think she may be dead now, but I don’t know. I don’t even know her name. But when ever I think of my grandmother’s funeral all that comes to mind is what I thought about that women. And her large purple hat.