the loaded gun.....

ok, so my friend mildred boggs was laid to rest in the small cemetary on north buster pike in mercer county today.......and since she is the only person that i have ever/will ever fall out over a loaded gun............it is worth recording the incident for posterity......mildred lived across the road with her husband emmett from our friends dick and margie.....who later became cayle's foster parents and who divorced within a month of her adoption......i say across the road in the most polar of terms.....they lived on the uphill side....and the boggs lived on the downhill/lakeside........downhill being the operative word......he had retired years before from the ashland area of ky to live a quiet life of fishing....and more fishing...presumably from some work involving chemicals or petroleum......and mildred was his multi-talented spouse......the kind of person who could have/should have been a hippie....the sort of free spirit that one wondered if her mind had ever been altered chemically, if not for the fact that she was 75+ ........she painted, she gardened, she wrote haiku, she baked treats, she repaired bears, and she believed in fairies......i came to know her when andrew was a toddler and stephan was a baby....and we would walk to visit with one in the backpack and one grasping a hand....their cabin was mostly one large room, with 2 bedrooms and a bath off on the road/nonlakeside .......many, many visits....with teaparties that included her many stuffed bears......she talked to her bears as if they were real.......ala pinochio....i helped with her gardening.....which really means that i helped to fight back the tide of nature.....i have several plants that i can track back to her...za lovely oriental yellow holly bush, for starts......and several watercolors of sunrises/sunsets.....and maybe a haiku or two in notes she sent......and all was well until my boys were old enough to wander from our sight while we chatted......not perfect, mind you....there had been a few gasps and comments on my part when we stayed long enough into a saturday afternoon for a u.k. game....and both emmett and mildren referred to players using the n. word........at first i was just surprised....and thought maybe they forgot they had company....but later on i realized that neither cared if overheard......and then there was the gun incident......when we were watching a uk game, and drinking tea....and one of the children (i honestly cannot remember which) wandered into mildred's room....certainly looking for her stuffed bears at their own tea table.....and mildred leaped out of her seat and started screaming that maybe ______would find the gun under her pillow.........what gun?.....the gun i keep under my pillow......you keep a gun under your pillow? is it loaded?......of course it is loaded.................your children cannot come here if they cannot keep out the places where there are loaded guns...............how many loaded guns.....several.............omg.......i packed up the kids and we walked home..........looking back.....i am sad that i let the n. word slide and only broke off our relationship over the gun thing........and so.....a woman that i have not spoken to in maybe 17 years has passed away........and i am sad that we never made peace with our differences.....i did walk up there the very next christmas, with both boys and a gift.....and she peeked out her window to see who was there....and then only came out with her slop jar to throw onto the compost pile.....and told me that i/us that we could take out gift and go home.....which we did..................again....so sad she has passed...so sad we never made peace...........