Today I Shot My Pickles

 So there's been this box of pickles sitting in my house since September 3, 2014. They were canned the day I was supposed to be going to see Radley bright and early when I woke up. But since they hadn't been canned the two days before, they HAD to be canned that day. It was apparently very important to everybody but me and Reece.

 I didn't give a shit about pickles that day, and I gave less of one after he died. I wanted to go to my baby, but my driver had to can them. I still don't know why the cucumbers couldn't have been given to the neighbors or thrown out the back door and left to rot for all I care, but they couldn't be.

 That box that says pickles on it has been sitting in my guest room since the day after they were canned and I came home because he died. I grew to hate them more and more as time went on. One of my friends and I have spent several hours of time talking about ways to destroy them utterly off the face of the earth.

 Smash them against a rock, blow them up, shoot them to smithereens... Anything to destroy the abominable things. There's no way I would have ever been able to eat them. They were like blood money. They were symbol of time wasted. They were canned at the expense of time I could have spent with my baby. They were a symbol of death. Some could say I wasted them, but I say they were wasted because they weren't given away or tossed out in the ditch along highway 10 somewhere.

 I wasted half a box of ammo because of flashbacks to the NICU at 2:18am on September 4, but every time I aimed that gun I thought "This is for you Radley. I'm shooting the pickles that kept me away from you!"

 I don't even know how to describe how I feel now. Like a huge weight has been lifted? Like something horrible has been taken out of my house and I'll never have to see it again? I've watched all the videos of me shooting 10 times each and every time I grin bigger. I made a rookie mistake once and let the gun kick my arm, but that's okay. I'm going to wear something sleeveless to church tomorrow to be sure the bruise in the shape of a gun butt shows up niiiice and purple and visible.

 And if anybody asks? I'm gonna say,

"Oh, it's nothing. I just finally shot my pickles!"