Smokey Mountain Breakdown

The men in my family...and I get the feeling that most men, unless they are very carefully taught...seem lost when it comes to gift-giving for women. Particularly during holidays like Valentines day. I'm sort of the same way. It's part of my odd brain chemistry or architecture that I tend to think more like a man at times. But I was very carefully taught.

I've simplified my gift giving and it's much easier now. I send things I make here on the farm. Goat milk fudge, wild-crafted jam and jelly, and home-made soaps and skin creams. They are the humble gifts of my hands and my heart. I offer them with love and hope they are taken in the spirit in which they are given.

Part of the confusion, I believe, is that women come in two different flavors as far as what they like to receive. Some women are practical. Some are more moved by gesture. You can cover both by being aware as to which type of woman you are dealing with. Practical women are okay with gesture-oriented gifts like flowers and perfume. Gesture-oriented women are trickier. You can really stick your foot in you mouth giving a gesture-oriented woman something with a cord.

And, of course, the worst thing of all, is to do nothing. We don't believe for a minute that you just "forgot".

I came along late in my parent's lives. By that time, my father had his gift-giving technique as far as my mother was concerned, down to a fine if predictable science. He would bring home African Violets for her. She seemed to really love the little plants and the window sills were always covered with them. Valentines or her birthday or their wedding anniversary merited the addition of a bottle of her favorite perfume. Either Chanel #5 or Joy. And sometimes a box of Baci or Almond Roca.

My mother, like me, was not the sort to turn her nose up at practical gifts. She loved the African Violets, Baci and perfume, but Christmas meant things with cords. I, too, love to get things with cords. Preferably power tools. Ouuu baby...bring on the major appliances and skilsaws and watch my knees buckle.

One Christmas, Mother got a microwave oven from Dad. It was enormous and one of the first models to come out. She was thrilled and we all had a great time exploring how many sorts of food items the thing could ruin before deciding it did rice, baked potatoes and bacon very nicely.

My sister, Simone, is of the other sort of woman. She is a blonde goddess of taste, beauty and breeding. When she walks in the room, everyone stares at her. Men want her to the point of stupefaction and women want to scratch her green eyes out. Or at the very least just bask in her reflected glory.

My sister is Byron's woman. The "walks in beauty like the night" sort of woman. The sort of woman who is a muse to poets, whose very visage inspires great works of arts in celebration of her beauty. I'm more the gal from Shakespeare's sonnet 130. "My mistress, when she walks, treads the ground." Yes, that's me. In my men's size 10 duck boots.

Quite frankly, if you misinterpret a woman like my sister as being the sort of woman who enjoys getting something with a cord, you deserve every bit of hot, steaming scorn that comes your way. You idiot. That will be a very expensive hole to dig out of. 3 carats or a trip to Paris expensive. So don't fuck up, okay?

I remember those little African Violets. How sweet they were and how delicate a gift to come from my big, strong Daddy. When my mother was dying from cancer, we fixed up the downstairs "florida room" so that she could stay home while she was dying. Like the violets, my father seemed much more fragile suddenly.

Every one of those window sills was littered with African Violets. We ran out of places to put them. I still weep when I see one.

That's love poetry.

Yesterday was market day.

Every third Wednesday I make my way into town to pay my bills and buy a few groceries, dog and goat food for the month. I do this on this day since that is when my disability check comes in and while I don't have it as hard as many, I am on a fixed income. I try to get everything paid off while the money is there.

I don't talk much about money, because I was raised that way. In fact, it was a lesson my mother actually regretted driving home so hard. The lesson that ladies simply did not concern themselves with finances and certainly didn't talk about them. I don't think I knew what each job I had paid at the time I took it until I was in my mid-twenties.

"So how much will you be making?" My mother would ask.

"I'm not sure. I didn't ask."

It just felt impossibly rude to talk about it. How could I possibly ask how much money I'd be making?

Now, I count each penny. Most of what I've made has literally gone to the dogs. And the goats. I'll eat ramen noodles all month before my animals will go without. Good thing I actually like ramen noodles.

This was a harder trip than most. Aegis' vet bill was substantial and I'd had to rework my entire budget so I could pay off that bill over the next four or five months.

We had been promised a grant from a group called Help-a-Pet. But as soon as they found out that Aegis was not going to make it, they withdrew the offer. I was too grief stricken to think about it at the time, but it was beginning to piss me off.

My mother didn't only give me a pathological avoidance of all things monetary. She was the one who gave me the gift of words. As a pudgy, pigtailed fat kid, stumbling in and out of fat camp like a crack addict in rehab, I knew very well that words could hurt. I learned from watching my mother, that words were a devastating weapon when deployed with skill.

Frances Griffeth was the undisputed champion of the nasty letter. She was a veritable sensei of the arch and cutting word. In my mother's hands, the pen was not only mightier than the sword, it was mightier than a thermonuclear warhead.

So, as I thought about it, I decided that Help-a-Pet deserved a letter. I didn't want their damn money, but I wanted them to know that I knew that what they did was wrong. So I began composing a letter. A Frances letter. A letter to shame these dreadful people.

I was having to take sleeping pills to stop composing the letter at night.

That's how a truly good nasty letter is born. You have to obsess about it. You need to let it run around your brain like a rabid raccoon, before actually writing it.

The letter gnawed at my brain stem while I went about my errands until I reached my vet's office. As I sat in the jeep in front of the office, the enormity of my loss hit me.

I'd forgotten how difficult the first visit back to the vet's after such a loss could be. I stood outside the door on their porch and looked out to the street.

I tried to compose myself. I kept doing that stupid sucking in and out of my cheeks thing that I do when I'm trying not to cry. I try not to think what I must look like, standing there...stiffly and rigidly. My fists clinching and my eyes turning bloodshot and wet. I try to stop my chin from wrinkling up like a Cabbage Patch Doll's ass. I buck it up. I walk in the clinic.

I thought I was doing okay as I put my wallet down on the counter of the window that looked into the receptionist's area.

"I'm here to put some money down on Aegis' bill." I say.

Michelle messes with the computer to bring up Aegis' screen.

I thought I was doing okay until I caught the word "deceased" in italics and parentheses next to Aegis' name. I felt my face crumple like a used tissue.

"There doesn't seem to be a balance on this account." Michelle says.

I blink hard to regain control of my facial muscles.

"There must be some mistake." I say, my voice soft and hoarse.

Michelle goes into the back and returns with Sandra, my vet. Actually, most of the clinic pokes their heads in the door.

"This was already taken care of. A man from Durham paid it."

At this point, I completely lose it. I know who did this. He only knows me sort of second hand. Aegis and I took in a cocker in Charleston named Zachary. We took him to Kerry Bryce's Carolina Cockers in Chapin, SC. He was a quirky little tri-color with an attitude and an air of entitlement. Mr. Holley adopted Zach.

Zach went on to the bridge this past year. The Holley's were crushed. Zach, like Aegis, wasn't really all that old.

And now, Mr. Holley done gone and paid Aegis' vet bill.

I stand there sobbing like a five year old. I'm glad there isn't anyone else in the clinic. I don't have a handkerchief and wipe my face on my sleeve.

"Hey! This is a good thing!" Sandra says.

"I...I..uh..uh...uh...know...uh...uh..He didn't have to do that!" I say, barely able to speak. I am not a person who weeps with any sort of grace or elegance. It's not pretty.

They ask how the other of my "boys" are doing. I'm so grateful that they can tell that I need to turn my mind to something else so that I can regain control. Self-control is important to me and I've completely lost it this day.

I'm almost okay again and can leave the office.

I sit in the jeep for about fifteen minutes before I feel I can drive. I'm overwhelmed by the generosity of Mr. Holley. I think of all of the wonderful gifts I've received. My mother's gift of her fearsome and lovely words. Aegis' gift of companionship and self-less devotion. My veterinarian's gift of understanding. My wonderful, supportive friends. And Mr. Holley didn't just pay Aegis' vet bill for me.

He gave me the gift of knowing that there are people out there handing out kindnesses just to do so. Just because.

How great is that?