6 December 2024, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2578: different person

Fractal art by the author, Deeann D. Mathews

“I'm glad Cousin Harry called you, Papa, because I kinda want to know about something that scares me a little bit … we know you are coming back with Grandma in two days, and we love you and want you back home … but since you are a different person after that many weeks of therapy, how much do you need for us to be different?”

Eleven-year-old Eleanor Ludlow could not know it through the phone, and her grandfather's command training meant she would not know it until more mature years, but she came as close as any female had ever come to breaking Capt. R.E. Ludlow's heart completely with that question.

However, all that West Point came in handy, along with the captain's deep and continuing personal growth.

“Eleanor, the whole point of me doing this kind of work on myself is so that you can be yourself, and develop as you should into adulthood without burdening you and forcing you to be someone other than who you should be. What happens with adults is that we expect other people and things to compensate us for things we feel didn't get in childhood and in life until we do the work to humble ourselves and heal as much as we can.”

Eleanor considered this.

“Is this kinda what happened to Dad and Aunt Anne?”

“Yes, Eleanor. Your biological grandmother and I did not realize in time that the way we were choosing to live as adults was going to damage them, and that they would turn to drugs and the kinds of partners who would be with them in that kind of life for comfort and compensation.”

“But it is their responsibility that they did not choose to humble themselves, take responsibility, and heal before passing the damage on,” Eleanor said, and her big cousin Col. H.F. Lee quickly reached over and put an arm of support around her.

“Yes,” Capt. Ludlow said. “But you see, the damage started with me, in that I chose your biological grandmother for reasons other than her fitness to be a mother who could cope with my life as a serviceman, and that I did not pay enough attention when home to her, and therefore not enough attention to what was going on with your father and your aunt. Since the damage started with me, and already has rolled down to you, your siblings, and your first cousins who are now your adopted siblings, it has to end with me, and that is why I have done and will continue to work on myself so that when you are grown, there is no more damage to pass down. We can all heal and grow from here, together.”

“I'm really looking forward to you and Grandma getting back,” Eleanor said. “I want this, so bad!”

“Me too, Eleanor – and we're going to have it, Lord willing! How are y'all doing with your journaling?”

“Oh, I'm just about to finish my first one, and it really does help a lot,” Eleanor said.

“I shall come with new ones on Sunday for all of you – I bet my twin has taken all his red crayons on those red pages and made the reddest journal ever!”

“Yeah, Lil' Robert is definitely Roberting,” Eleanor said about her baby brother and namesake of their father and grandfather, Robert Edward Ludlow III.

“And that's the point. You should be Eleanoring, and he should be Roberting, and I in my Grandpa Roberting should not be getting in the way of any of you becoming who God wants you to be. I'm not supposed to be changing you to make me comfortable in my childhood, marriage, and Army stuff. You all have already been through too much of that because I failed as a parent, setting your parents up to fail – and we're not even going to talk about these foster homes.”

“Not even worth the air,” Eleanor said.

“No, because in Ludlow Family 2.0, we're not doing any of that. We are going to grow and heal and see what the Lord has for us, now, and into the future.”

“Yes!”

“Ask your Cousin Harry if you can borrow his phone so you can take it to your siblings – Grandma and I will talk with all y'all while I'm on the line.”

“Of course,” the colonel said, and watched, in tears of joy, as his little Ludlow cousins all got around the phone to ear the voice of their grandparents – and then was not surprised when eight-year-old Edwina Ludlow came to get him.

“I don't know why you act like you're not one of us now – I mean, you're moving down here next week, so, please get with the program already!” she said, and dragged him right back with her to listen and enjoy.

“Grandee Leedlow strikes again,” Mrs. Maggie Lee said later, and broke up her husband's tears of joy with hearty laughter, for indeed, the program had been going on a for century. Capt. Ludlow and all his little Ludlows were descendants of Grandee Lee herself, Col. Lee's great-aunt Hilda Lee Slocum-Bolling.