“Damn!” I said to my husband. “Those squirrels have better insulation in their nests than we have in this house we just spent a fortune on. No wonder we’re freezing our asses off. That’s it. I want a gun.”

“What?”

“You heard me. A gun.” I said. “Whatever kind you shoot squirrels with. I want one. Will you get it for me?”

That evening, my husband presented me with a Daisy air rifle, complete with pellets. The next day, I’m in the backyard stalking squirrels.

At first, I could only hit them at close range, usually when they were raiding the bird feeder. Then I started knocking them out of trees. After I killed that first one, I burst into tears, then carefully buried it in one of the garden beds after saying a prayer. After I’d killed four or five, I called my therapist.

“I’m killing squirrels,” I confessed.

My therapist is from rural Tennessee and had killed some squirrels in his day, but he had long since abandoned the practice. I thought he would tell me I had to abandon the practice, too, but instead, he stressed the importance of mindfulness, referring to my newfound activity as a “killing meditation.” My therapist believes everything we do is an opportunity for growth.

That winter, I killed over fifty squirrels. After forty-eight, I quit counting.

Some of my friends were appalled. Others didn’t care. “They’re nothing but rats with a good press agent,” said one.

Sometimes I think back to when I was eight years old and brought into our house in Spartanburg a baby squirrel that had fallen out of its nest. I tried keeping it alive with feedings of warm milk from an eyedropper. When it died, I was devastated. I ceremoniously buried it in the back yard, marking the grave with a wooden cross made from Popsicle sticks. The squirrel’s name ― CLEOPATRA ― was painted on the cross in Mama’s red fingernail polish.

So whatever happened to that tenderhearted little girl? Well, she’s still inside me. But things change. Little girls grow up, just like their mothers. Being raised Presbyterian, a case could be made that I was predestined to kill those squirrels. But most likely, it was just in my blood.