... but I've got my pistol?!

It's these spring mornings when I most often think of my mother. She loved spring like a dog loves a bone. She started checking all her plants, uncovering her Irises feet and could hardly wait to get her work clothes on and her hands in the dirt.
When we were kids, when she would let them, my brothers would cut the grass. Now mind you, this wasn't a little square of sod in a "city" yard. We had about two and half acres and there was a huge hill in front about the size of a football field. The kind of yard you must go side-to-side to cut because it's too steep to go up and down. Mama was the lawn mower purchaser most of my life, in her later years she went to key start models.  She wasn't crazy about waiting for someone to get there to start her mower.  Probably well into her sixties and because she wasn't blessed with great physical strength, she would call one of us to come over and crank her lawn mower. When it was my turn, she always commented "I don't know how you are that strong" (I got that from the Hicks side of the family by the way)  I would finish my iced tea (made fresh at 6 a.m.) and whatever she had prepared for my breakfast) and head into my own day.
Mama always remembered her children's food preferences. If Steve was coming, it was piping hot coffee and if she had any ham or sausage on hand she made sure he had plenty. If it was Crant, there was gravy made for biscuit sopping. For me, she made iced tea and "toasted in the oven, open face cheese toast" my favorite.
To say my mama was independent was laughable. I often marvel at how ahead of her time she was and lest I forget, my daddy who was quite comfortable in his manhood and not threatened by her drive, tenacity and ambition. He was the one who always told me, "You are smart and can do whatever you want in life"... "There is nothing holding you back."  (When if he had his druthers would probably have chosen for mama to remain at home and not work outside the home.) A choice I'm sure he knew was futile to discuss.

Mama was only fifty-two when daddy died. Now as I sit facing my sixtieth birthday soon, I realize how young she actually was. Daddy and the boys hunted all my life, guns were a part of our home, as they were about every other home as well. Now that mama was alone, she always made sure she had her 38 with her everywhere she went outside the community.  So here is my mama, gray-haired and slender built, slightly rounding shoulders from osteoporosis with this long-barrel 38 tucked under her seat and she wasn't afraid to use it.
She would long to see her sister who lived in Pensacola and I would get a late night call, "I'm heading to Pensacola in the morning, I need to see my sister" "I've got my 38, I'll call you when I get there".. Of course there were no cell phones then. We all had our reservations about her traveling alone but.. what do you do? That's just who she was. Arguing would have been a complete waste of time and energy, even though she would have nodded agreeably, hugged you because she appreciated the concern but literally would have laughed in your face. If you offered to go with her and she didn't want company, she would kindly decline you.
Her mother died when she was five and her sister six, she lived out her childhood with her daddy, who she loved fiercely. She walked to the creek and hauled water as a five year old, walked the two miles to church every Sunday, tidied dirt floors when they lived in a tent for a while and had cared for herself all her life. Driving 300 miles to see her sister? Calm down people, the car is doing most of the work, she would say.
So, on this spring day it's my "snuggle Thad day." I get baby snuggles from a sweet baby named after my daddy and a precocious little girl who loves to wear "ip" stick and go to the store for stickers.
I will teach them all how to uncover the Iris feet to assure us of more blooms. We will smell the sweet shrubs that came from mama and daddy's yard, watch the birds at my feeders and laugh. We will laugh alot. One of the boys and I are planting multi-colored carrots this year and we will take walks and have our hands in the dirt. We will hold hands, read books and I hope one day they will remember all these things from childhood fondly.
They are smart, funny and strong like their Grandaddy Hicks, Uncles Crant & Steve and their Honey. My brother still has that 38 long barrel and I'm betting one day it's passed down to a grandchild who will carry it on long trips of their hearts desire, alone. Because that's who they are too.