26 June 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2780: commemorate

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“You know, I do like home schooling with my cousins who are now my new siblings, but when it does go wrong in word study, it goes wrong quick, fast, and in a hurry.”

Ten-year-old Glendella Ludlow was talking with eleven-year-old Velma Trent next door, and Velma put her hands on her hips and shook her head like she was her grandmother Mrs. Velma Stepforth.

“Yeah,” she said. “Your new Ludlows under age 10 have my big sister Vanna over here popping popcorn for us to just watch.”

“It generally starts with Grayson because he's about to destroy the competition in the Virtual Lofton County Spelling Bee for first-graders,” Glendella said, “but then Andrew and Eleanor are reading at high school levels like I am and things just get crazy between those three – and the thing is, they can spell it all, and even Rob at five years old generally knows what he is talking about in terms of a definition, but then things get wild.”

That morning, seven-year-old Amanda Ludlow had learned the word commemorate and was explaining it to five-year-old Lil' Robert Ludlow. It started almost right.

“So, it's like co- means with, and memorate means to remember stuff, so basically, commemorate is to remember stuff together,” Amanda said. “It's like adding snugglecouragement to every memoration!”

Lil' Robert considered this.

“Can we co-eat, too?” he said.

“Oh, we do that all the time, and then we all memorate together, so that's commemorating again – yup!”Amanda said. “It's actually more fun when you memorate together, except when people not Papa or Grandma start memorating their whole life when memorating to thank God for the food.”

“I hate that!” eight-year-old Edwina Ludlow said. “Some people's brains are just running their memorateable moments like they run their mouths!”

“Memorateable?” Amanda said.

“Yeah – you're supposed to rate your memories and know which ones everybody doesn't need to hear!” Edwina said. “God already has perfect memorateness – He never forgets anything! But we don't need to know every dumb thing you've done and be worried that you're not done doing dumb stuff yet!”

“You know,” nine-year-old George said, “I heard once that people who love to share their memorates about dumb stuff they did in the past are rating their memorates too high – they probably are still wanting to do the same things again if they can.”

“Exactly!” Edwina said.

“You know,” ten-year-old Andrew said, “the Bible does say we need to forget the things that are behind and press forward toward the mark of our calling in Christ, so we do need to rate those dumb memorates as to be left behind and stop re-memorating them – and then forcing other people to commemorate them with us has to got to stop.”

“But see, I'm five, and I ain't gotta worry about this,” Lil' Robert said, “because, see, I just go forward to the next meal, because, see, I'm hungry – can we eat now?”

“But wait a minute!” eleven-year-old Eleanor said. “We can't just stop with the dumb things about memorates and memorating! Don't y'all remember our grandparents' favorite love songs, like 'Thanks for the memorates … .'”

“And the thing is,” Glendella said to Velma later, “Eleanor can really sing, so, if she gets caught up in it, it even sounds good! It took Good Grandma and Upgrade Papa thirty minutes to work all that out!”

Velma shook her head again.

“Big Mama Velma always says that the world is messed up the way it is because a serpent made dumb stuff sound good,” she said. “I guess she's right, Glendella.”