Even though Jojo never met Richie and only got to know him through Pop’s stories, Richie impacted him hugely, allowing him to understand the world around him, which Leonie failed to do as a mother. Jojo reaches for his pocket, and the policeman assumes that he reached for a gun. Richie predicts what will happen by telling Jojo, 'They going to chain you (Ward 169).' When Jojo leaves the car, the policeman tells Jojo to get down on the grass and cuffs him (170). When the policeman approaches the car and tells Leonie to step out, he also asks Jojo to step out. Jojo hears about Richie’s story from Pop but never hears the ending because Pop does not want to remind himself of how he killed Richie. The relationship between Jojo and Richie presents another example of a supernatural relationship in this book. His brother stands beside her, watching her as if he comes to life and guides her. Given’s return reminds Leonie of the past whenever she takes drugs even though he passed away many years ago. He had Mama’s face (Ward 34).” After the boundary between life and death begins to blur, memories actually become living things.

He sat in one of the two empty chairs at the table with us and leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. Leonie mentions, “Last night, he smiled at me, this Given-not-Given, this Given that’s been dead fifteen years now, this Given that came to me every time I snorted a line, every time I popped a pill. Supernaturals serve as a connection between life and death in many ways. Dead people return, and specific people can see them in real life and even communicate with them, such as Richie and Jojo or Given and Leonie. Usually, people tend to believe that death is the end of one’s life, but in Sing, Unburied, Sing, death serves as a new beginning and a form of release. Because Jasmyn Ward challenges the traditional understanding of life and death by blurring the lines between the two concepts, she emphasizes the relevance of the living and the dead, using symbolic elements such as water flow and supernaturals. Southern Gothics usually include storytelling of eccentric characters who become flawed and irrational and emphasize the idea of death and decay. Jasmyn Ward, the author of the Southern Gothic novel Sing, Unburied, Sing uses water as a symbol for the cycle of life and death because death does not terminate life. Water usually represents life and vitality, as it functions as an indispensable source for the survival of human civilization.

Ward sing unburied sing