30 april 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2722: my dead cousin

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

For a moment, Mrs. Maggie Lee stopped and just watched her husband, Col. H.F. Lee, picking his tools out … he had brought wood and was going to begin on building a cradle for their coming baby … this for him was an act of deep faith nine months in advance, because his first child had died minutes after birth, as had his first wife.

“I can watch him,” she said to her cousin Margie, “and know what he is praying about, because faith without works is dead, and his faith is alive.”

Little Ludlow cousin six-year-old Grayson brought over blue construction paper and white crayons.

“I hear you're building a cradle for our little Lee cousin, Cousin Harry. I see you with your tools, but we gotta do blueprints.”

“You're right – how could I forget? I'm getting old, Grayson.”

“I'm here for you, Cousin Harry. I got you, like you had us when we really needed you when Papa was getting better. Everything my little Lee cousin needs that God isn't doing in Cousin Maggie's belly, we're gonna blueprint it all and it's gonna be great!”

“Sounds like a plan,” Col. Lee said as he took half the paper and crayons. “I don't know if we have time tonight before dinner, but we can start in the morning.”

“I'll be here, Cousin Harry – I got you.”

“And if Grayson Ludlow says he's got you, he does, like his big cousin Harry,” Mrs. Lee purred as the little boy ran and bounced back up into the Ludlow house.

“Well, we have to keep our lives together in order to be worthy of you, Maggie.”

“Awwwwwww....”

A sweet embrace and kiss, and then the two went out on their porch.

“Do you ever think, Harry, that maybe you don't have to do quite so much?” Mrs. Lee said.

Col. Lee considered that.

“The concept doesn't exist off-grid in the Appalachians,” he said. “Of course, life is easier than it was when my grandfather was Grayson's age, and even when I was Grayson's age, but every minute could be accounted for. We were doing something productive, actively doing recreation, or resting. In my particular case, because I began to develop insomnia in childhood, it was especially important to me to use my waking time well.”

“Oh. Things we valley dwellers never think about, but my grandparents from the Italian mountains would understand.”

Col. Lee smiled.

“Our grandparents adore each other,” he said. “That was a nice surprise, indeed.”

“Nonna is constantly going on about how it was meant to be even though you are a Protestant,” Mrs. Lee said, and they laughed.

“I do understand what you are saying, Maggie,” he said. “My Uncle Hopkins – Big Hop, my cousin Hoppy's dad, once got exasperated with a cousin and said, 'My dead cousin has more sense than you, Snappy – you work stuff up until you reach the gates of heaven and then you stop!' What he meant was, you work on things in your province of life, but the moment it becomes obvious that the rest is in God's hands, you need to stop and rest from it. This advice helped me after my first wife and child's death … I knew they were happy past those gates, and that I had done all I could right up to that moment. So: I'm always going to work my stuff up right to the gate – but when I can go no further, I know the Lord will do what is best. I would be terrified of losing my second wife and child but that I have asked the Lord to spare them and me … He said go on and build the cradle, so I'm going to just do that while He does what only He can do from His side.”

Mrs. Lee, the second wife, just embraced and snuggled with her husband.

“And God even sent Grayson with blue construction paper and white crayons for blueprints, so you know it's going to be all right now.”

Inside the Ludlow house, Grayson and ten-year-old Glendella Ludlow were working in the Lego pile and heard their big Lee cousin laughing.

“Cousin Harry can relax now and enjoy life more because blueprints,” Grayson said.

“Yep,” Glendella said.