5 July 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2789: merchant of lost things

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“Woody, I've got it from here – it's not even a mile to where I'm staying up here in Tinyville, and you will have to march back.”

“Harry, get in your truck and be cared for like you are constantly looking out for everybody else.”

Mrs. Agnes Hamilton just watched, smiled, and prayed as her husband, Major Ironwood Hamilton, did what only he of all male peers could do: get Colonel Henry Fitzhugh Lee to stop stressing about everything and everyone else and be loved and cared for, too. The Lee cousin was completely exhausted … but he still got piled on by the younger Hamiltons, and got led clear around the house by 15-year-old Addison Hamilton to the new modeling booth the teenager had built himself for the new Ham It Up jewelry offerings, with six-year-old Hamilton twins Ilene and Allison also tagging along. The colonel dearly loved his younger Hamilton cousins as much as he did his younger Ludlow cousins, and might have been piled on quite a bit more, but Maj. Hamilton was not having it.

“Break it up, y'all – Cousin Harry has to get home to Cousin Maggie.”

The younger Hamilton children obeyed their father; meanwhile, the older Hamilton children, Adella (20) and Hamilton twins Agnes and Iris (18) were loading their cousin's truck with the cakes and breads they were sending with their Lee cousin for him and his wife and their Ludlow cousins.

“I don't know how y'all have extra with the mouths you have around here,” the colonel kidded Mrs. Hamilton.

“You've never seen a New Yorker who has had four sets of twins on a food run in a country town,” Mrs. Hamilton said. “I think like someone who is always eating for two more, and in the pandemic, food providers are almost always doing too much hoping someone will come along who can pay for it. There are other families in Tinyville that are just about out of money. Today, you have come by. Someone else will thank God tomorrow for the extra food I can get.”

“I speak to you as the Lofton Trust's newest trustee; I'll have some information about resources for necessities that the Trust is setting up in your e-mail by the end of the day.”

“Wait a minute, Harry. You're back working full and overtime for BLPD and you're on the Lofton Trust board with all the Trust has going on right now – and weren't you the one that figured out how to get Bayard Heights evacuated when the county wouldn't do it?”

“Only full and overtime with BLPD for the present emergency – likely to be back on furlough schedule next week,” Col. Lee said.

“Sure, Chief,” Maj. Hamilton said. “Now you know as soon as BLPD can get out from conservatorship they are going to make you chief, Harry, unless you do something about it.”

“I'm going with Lil' Robert Ludlow on this one: next week, though!”

Mrs. Hamilton cracked up laughing, but saw the glint in her husband's gray eyes, and knew there was going to be further conversation between the major and the colonel as the colonel was driven to where home was in Tinyville for the time being. She just prayed, and headed back to the house where two-year-old twins Ira and Agnew were getting loud, enjoying the game their big twin brothers Orton and Edward were playing with them to keep them happy until Mama got back.

Maj. Hamilton took the long way to do a mile-long drive, and let his cousin settle into the music for a little bit before saying what he had to say.

“The thing about PTSD for a great commander,” he said, “is that he's in more trouble if he never lost on the battlefield, because out here everyone isn't on the same mission and so no matter how great he is, if he doesn't learn how to let go of folks who are not and will not be getting with the program, he is not going to progress in his own healing.”

“When I next talk to a great commander, Woody, I'll tell him.”

“I know a guy, Harry – still winning at the 95th percentile, herding cats in three different spheres of work in the civilian world, probably going to be written in for district supervisor, probably going to be put up for chief of police in Big Loft, and probably going to be at least secretary for the Lofton Trust if not outright president – and, he's only lost ten men out of hundreds who've served with him to PTSD-related things. The only person I am concerned about is him, not able to keep himself out of over-pressurized situations and say no because he just doesn't want to see any more losses.”

“Sounds like that guy might be in a little trouble, Woody. I understand his plight – 95 percent is not good enough when the stakes are this high.”

“Only the Lord Jesus is running 100 percent, Harry. You can't have His spot.”

Col. Lee's eyes grew wide, and then he shook and closed his eyes as Major Hamilton stopped at the corner and pulled into a parking spot.

“Think about that, Harry. You are doing your best to substitute for the fact that folks have been churching it up for years in Lofton County while doing all kinds of foolery – you're overlooking the fact that we grew up with Sandy Gebhardt and a bunch of men like him and we already know what they are and what they want out of life and the military was just a way to get them a pension so they can ride it out. We already know all this.

"It is not your will that anyone should perish and I get it – I'm not even saying that the stuff you have been doing has not been necessary up to and including going to get Sandy that last time. I'm saying, you're going to hurt yourself trying to get that percentile to 100 percent, because you can't, and second, you can have the 95th percentile or stay on track with the life of peace you are building with Maggie and your Ludlow cousins. You can't have both.”

Col. Lee was silent, but his cousin could see in his body language that he was wrestling with these ideas. PTSD was a terrible thing, and the major knew it had started before the army – the colonel had lost his first wife and child in childbirth when he was only 18, and that loss had deeply marked him. His fighting back was why his battlefield percentile in terms of victory and survival for his soldiers was stellar, and why he could herd cats in Lofton County – that silent shout of “NEVER AGAIN!” was echoing back from everything he had touched in 28 years. But the death of Sandy Gebhardt was reading – misreading – as “Again.”

Major Hamilton just waited and prayed, praying that the misreading going on in his cousin's brain would straighten out … and then remembered something

“Remember that story your grandfather told about the merchant of lost things who traveled up and down the mountains, and became too good at the job?”

Col. Lee twitched slightly, and then slowly, he relaxed.

“Rehomed everything but himself – never got home,” he said. “I remember … now, I understand what you are saying.”

He heaved a great sigh.

“I have much to think and pray about this weekend,” he said, “but I do understand. I am not called to be the merchant of lost things … and no one can be the savior of people who choose to double down in their lostness. I must bring my thinking into conformity with these truths and live accordingly. I will not be accepting the position of county supervisor, chief of police in Big Loft, and executive board position for the Lofton Trust this year – I understand.”

Major Hamilton started up the truck.

“Let's get you home, Harry,” he said.

“Yes,” Col. Lee said. “Yes.”