The Sinclair family begins to experience loss. Tipper, the grandmother, dies. The death draws attention to the difference between Cady and her family, and it highlights the extent to which she disagrees temperamentally with her family culture. They want to behave as if no tragedy has happened, as if there is never a loss. They do so by avoiding mention of Tipper. It is as if she never lived, or had died. This is their way of maintaining the image of the perfect family, in which nothing bad ever occurs. Everything is always "normal." And it is maintained that way through effortful pretense on all of their parts. But Cady of course is different, and she sees and feel things differently. She suffers when her grandmother dies, and she does not conceal her feelings. A true Sinclair, she is also not a Sinclair, as her eventual decision to change her hair to black suggests (as the rest of the Sinclairs are blondes).