24 February 2024, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2292: a pocketful of rage

Image by 1820796 from Pixabay

Mr. Thomas and Mrs. Velma Stepforth were greatly looking forward to meeting Capt. Robert and Mrs. Thalia Ludlow. They had walked down with their Stepforth and Trent grandchildren, who were friends with the Ludlow grandchildren, for the Sunday dinner visit on Heroes Green.

However, though Mr. Stepforth had been much impatient in younger years, he at 66 had learned how to watch and wait like his wife did and learn people by what they did when no money was on the table.

“See, I'm going to be able to work with him,” Mr. Stepforth said, “and you were also right, Velma: that man's business is his grandchildren, and everyone and everything around them.”

“Yes, he is definitely loving on our grandchildren because they are his grandchildren's friends, and that's a nephew of Robert E. Lee there,” Mrs. Stepforth said. “From this angle, though it is what – four generations? Five? – but from this angle, you see the old general almost as much as you see him in Col. Lee from almost all angles.”

“And yet both of them are loving all the little ones, like the God they say they worship – believe I'll have to be fair myself and work with these men,” Mr. Stepforth said.

The Stepforths did not disturb the Ludlow grandchildren in their time with their grandparents, and chuckled as all the little Ludlow and Trent and Stepforth personalities interacted.

Eight-year-old Edwina Ludlow was a star, always … she always had things to say that were interesting, to say the least, but this brought Mrs. Stepforth to tears.

“So, Papa, Cousin Harry and Cousin Maggie have really been working with me, and that's why I have my pockets turned inside because I'm trying to get something Cousin Harry told me he had to learn when he was 18, and I'm eight, so, I'mma just get this jump on him real quick because I need more help – he told me that some told me that no matter what happens to us, we gotta forgive those who can be forgiven, let go those that aren't ready, and let God do the breaking bad on folks, because if we don't, and we keep a pocketful of rage, we're always going to be getting it on our hands and everything and everybody we touch when we reach in there.”

“That's some good wisdom, Edwina,” Capt. Ludlow purred in his huge bass (it startled the Stepforths, because as much as they had heard about it, nothing prepared one for the reality of it). “If you start now, you won't have to be like me, here un-stuffing pockets and pockets and pockets of it, and spend so much time away from those you love.”

“Yeah, because Gracie has been telling me that people who keep that pocket and keep stuffing,” Edwina said. “That's how a lot of folks in her family ended up in prison, because folks keep other bad stuff in that pocket, and sometimes they take it out and hurt themselves and others. I'm just not going for it – I'm just going to be like Lil' Robert on this, and I'm not going for it.”

Capt. Ludlow stood up and turned out his pockets.

“We're not going for it,” he said. “No pocketfuls of rage.”

Then he put his pockets back while saying, “We're just going to stuff them instead with love and care for each other, and building good everywhere we can in the world.”

“Yep, that's what I'm into now – building good!” Edwina said.

“Yeah, I had to learn that too,” Mr. Stepforth said as he looked at his wife and thought of their 50 years of memories, and how his pocketful of rage at a racist country had driven her away … and then how emptying it out and healing had made room for her to come back. “But what I'm going to need people to stop doing is cutting all these onions out here, because this crying in the middle of the day in the open is just not it.”