I’m sitting on the porch in the this morning under a blanket. Accu Weather says it’s 68 degrees but feels 74. Ok…feels 44 to me with this cool brisk wind blowing.

Yesterday the wind blew my peace lily plants all over the porch. One of the plant stands blew over, too. I saw Penelope looking funny at the screen door and I walked up to the door. One of the plants was laying sideways and looking through the slats it looked like a big raccoon. I started hollering, “Git, git!” Those are “charge into battle” words for Penelope. She hit the door with her 18 pounds like a battle ax, barking like she was possessed. Stew comes down the stairs to see what all the racket is about. His familiar catch phrase, “What on earth is going on Mother,?” he says. Only calls me mother when he catches me on the step ladder or he’s disappointed in my stupidity. “Oh, my God,” he says, “It’s a plant. Have you had a stroke?”

He’s always saying, “Don’t get on that ladder unless I’m down here!” I put a toenail on the first step and I’ll turn around and he’s there, scowling. Yesterday, when he was giving me a history lesson, could not believe I didn’t know the obscure facts he was rattling off. I interrupt, “Got on the ladder yesterday, TWICE!,” I say proudly. “Hung out the sunroom window and broke some branches off that tree touching the house and I put a lightbulb in the bathroom fixture.” His look was priceless. Then the second phrase, “I’m calling Bro!” Bro is an hour away…what can he do?

Stewart is my baby, born when I was 34 and Chief was 55. It was a hard pregnancy. I suffered with high blood pressure and swelling which led to toxemia and two months of bed rest. Mama came and stayed weekdays and Chief babysat me on weekends. My friend Linda brought me two brown paper grocery sacks full of books. I read and mama sat around waiting on me and waiting for the children to come home from school.

One morning I decided to sit up and watch the news in the den with mama. I had a horrible nosebleed, just pouring. I had a doctors appointment that morning and went straight from the doctor’s office to the hospital for an emergency Caesarean section. That birth was a nightmare. I was in the verge of a stroke because of my blood pressure. Chief had gone to Russell’s plants in Montgomery so Russell Security chased him down to tell him to go to the hospital.

The anesthesiologist stuck a needle in the vein on my wrist and pushed it several inches up my arm. The doctor said, “This is gonna hurt like hell, I’ll go slow.” And it did hurt like hell. I was shaking and freezing and my bare feet were ice cubes. One of the nurses says, “Just relax, this medicine will make you warm, like you are sitting on a beach.” Yeah, burned me like a sun burn and when the scalpel touched my stomach I felt the blade. The skin peeled off my hands and I had a reaction to the surgical tape.

So Stew arrived 6 weeks early, 5 pounds, 4 ounces. No eyelashes or eyebrows. Little dents where his toe and fingernails should be. Arms and legs like toothpicks. I was so sick, black circles under my eyes. Stayed in the hospital for almost a week. He stayed too.

He was spoiled! He’d cry and four folks would rush to him. Told Dr Sellers I was worried because he wasn’t talking. Dr. Seller said he didn’t have to talk because the four of us talked for him. Rosie treated him like a doll and Thomas was protective of him, always holding him and carrying him around.

As Chief got older, Stew became protective of him and would worry about him and call him home from gardening and wood cutting when the weather was stormy. He’d help him up when he’d fall. He kept tabs on him like a prison guard. Stew would try to boss him around. I’d come home from work and Stew would say, “I told daddy to come in and rest, but he won’t mind me!”

Now he’s trying to boss me around and protect me. When he’s upstairs working on his novels I’m free but when he comes downstairs, he checks to see what I’m up to.

Just the other day he caught me getting the baby bed mattress from under my bed. “What on Earth are you doing,” he says as I crawl out from under the bed. “I have a great idea,” I say excitedly. “We can let the Alexander, and Emerson, and Handley slide down the steps going upstairs, sitting on the mattress! They’ll love it…like a roller coaster.” “Mother,” he says, his voice rising in pitch, “Are you crazy? That will kill them when they hit the bottom step and their little heads strike that dresser!”

“We’ll, I’ll try it first,” I say, dejected. “That’s it!” he says,” exasperated. “I’m calling Bro and he’s calling Shady Oaks! Start packing!”

“Okay,” I say. “I’ll pack after one ride down the stairs!”