Dear Elsie Jane,

When I was in high school I dated a boy who was a "rugged outdoorsman" or something and would catch his own fish during summers as a park ranger Montana. I also, at one point, had a crush on a boy who once asked me if I had ever had deer jerky, and would undoubtedly miss school on the first and last days of hunting season. I'm pretty sure that I liked these boys in spite of their affinity for killing their own food.

I never, ever, thought I would find a hunter for myself. See, I'm a gatherer. I don't deal with death well. Okay, truth be told, I've not dealt with human deaths all that much. It was the chickens that traumatized me.

The summer after my freshman year of college, I moved back home and worked at the Winn-Dixie there in Crowley, Texas, (which has long since closed down and become something else). I started there the summer before as a cashier, but that second summer they needed help in the deli and it came with a little bit of a raise so I took it. The deli had rotisserie chickens. Those chickens came dead, plucked, frozen, and "untied," so one of the tasks that we had to do before closing up shop for the day was to "tie" chickens for the next day. I couldn't do it. I would cry. I would talk to the chickens and apologize to them. The deli manager finally got a clue that I was troubled by this task, and would frequently offer to let me do some other undesirable task instead (clean out the fryer, scrub the smoker, etc). Bless her.

And then I met your father. He's a hunter, and it has grown on me over the years. I really knew I was in for it when we were engaged and he bought himself a lifetime hunting and fishing license for Alabama. This told me two things:

1. We were always going to live in some proximity to Alabama for that to be a good investment.
2. Hunting season was going to be a lonely time every year because your father was undoubtedly going to get his money's worth out of that license, and I sure as heck wasn't going with him.

Your father shot his first big buck sometime a few years ago, and I was quite clear that that thing would not be mounted anywhere except the basement "man cave." Except that we didn't have a basement or a "man cave." So, it got hung in a study. And then it grew on me. We bought the house in Opelika, and now it hangs over the fireplace, because truly, a dead deer head has no other place in my home. That's where your grandparents have their deer hung, so isn't that the logical place to put your father's? It's growing on me.

I haven't done this yet, but I fully intend to hang ornaments and lights from his antlers one Christmas, or even tie a big red bow around his neck. We'll see.

Your father and I have been together for over ten years (married for almost eight) and though I have softened (succumbed? relented? eased?) in my tolerance of his hobby, I have not changed. I still have no love for the killing of animals and will not deal with them myself. I am still a gatherer through and through. I do not look negatively at hunting--it provides us with meat to eat throughout the year. Just know that I will never hunt. (And, consequently, I can't sit still or sit quietly long enough to get close enough to a deer; nor could I keep myself from sobbing about a dead deer should someone I'm with kill one, so it's better that I just stay home. And I'm not crazy enough to sit out in the cold for hours on end only to come home empty handed for entire hunting seasons.)

All that to say that there are three weekends left in hunting season, and I'm pretty sure your father will be absent from home for all of them. We'll get used to it.
Love you.
Mama.