6 November 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2913: sweep

“See, this is why I feel safe here – like people get grounded, but not neglected,” ten-year-old Glendella Ludlow said after watching how cousins-turned-siblings Lil' Robert (5), Amanda (7), Edwina (8), and George (9) were not allowed to come out and play for a day or two, but were still checked on by their roommate siblings and had time to talk with each of the Ludlow grandparents many times during the day to get an understanding of the situation and how to handle things better.

“Well, yeah,” eleven-year-old Eleanor said, “because it's really to nobody's good to have a pound of glitter and hundreds of gallons of water going everywhere because little kids don't understand what they are doing. “They are single-digit-aged people. They can't know unless us double-digit-aged people help them.”

Six-year-old Grayson looked up at his big sister with a look of frustration, but then thought better of it, and then thought again...

“I was just remembering how long I got grounded with Edwina that one time,” he said. “Once is enough for all my single-digit years. I'd rather keep quiet and be Legoing – but we're just not going to talk about you and Velma and the duct-taped pool, Eleanor!”

Eleanor turned bright red.

“Well, I mean, we need help from the bigger double-digit-aged people, too,” she said.

“That's what I thought,” Grayson said. “I'll say it because Rob is grounded: don't you look down on us single-digit-aged folks, because some of us have real tall souls and we're not going for it!”

“But, look, Grayson,” Glendella said, “you're the only person under ten not grounded.”

“And you are the only person besides Andrew over nine who has never been grounded, and you just got here,” Grayson said.

“I'm sorry, Grayson,” Eleanor said. “I wasn't meaning to be disrespectful of single-digit-aged people.”

“OK,” he said, and came and gave her a hug and forgot all about it.

Ten-year-old Andrew Ludlow just observed, and went to do his chores – it was his day to sweep the porches and the steps – to think about all this. His grandfather, Capt. R.E. Ludlow, found him looking perplexed when his work was done.”

“You would pass military inspection level on this, Andrew – great job,” Capt. Ludlow said. “But, a penny for your thoughts.”

“I was just thinking about yesterday and about how Rob, Mandie, Eddie, and George got grounded in five minutes flat between some glitter and George figuring out how to put that high-powered nozzle on the hose – I mean, that got out of control fast, but Grayson steered clear. 99 times out of 100, he manages to do that, and he's six. I don't get it unless its not about age, but something else.”

“It is,” Capt. Ludlow said. “Maturity. Robert is literally the child's heart within a man part of me, but Grayson has the calm intellect of my father and determination to keep his life clear of distractions to building. Now, as Edwina found out and some builders around here are going to find out someday, it doesn't pay to get Grayson tired of you – that's a mistake – but other than that, he just doesn't do drama. He is in that way like you: more mature in his intellect but even more so in his will than his age mates. All y'all are super intelligent. Grayson is just not going to be bothered, though.”

“Yeah, he let Eleanor know – I mean, we young double-digit-aged people gotta stay humble, because we were just single-digit-aged like last year or two years ago,” Andrew said.

“Humility, and recognizing the necessity of it, is another kind of maturity,” Capt. Ludlow said, “and many old men like me do not have that kind of maturity. I had to get to the big age of 39 before I was taught the hard way.”

“That's when it went to pieces with our biological grandmother, huh?” Andrew said.

“Nope,” Capt. Ludlow said. “That was when I realized it had been in pieces from the start, and I had been playing the fool thinking I was such a powerful man that I could make it work because I liked the way it all looked and felt. This is why I talk the way I do about it. Grandma Alexandra is not here to give her side of the story, and besides that, she didn't ask me to marry her, knowing it wasn't the right thing to do. I created that whole situation. I either was going to admit to that, humble myself, and start getting things squared, or the losses would be total.”

“Fairness must be a part of maturity, too,” Andrew said.

“It is,” Capt. Ludlow said, “but that also comes out of self-control. I am not an ordinary man, Andrew. I'm a military officer, and I graduated with top honors from West Point. It would be unfair to your young mind to even tell you how many ways a man like me can be unfair when he feels what is happening to him is unfair. Except it wasn't, really. I played God and God made me pay for that, in full.”

“Is that why you don't complain about it all?” Andrew said. “I mean, Anne Ludlow is my mother. I miss her, kinda … but also, kinda, not as much because I spent more time in foster care and with you and Grandma Thalia, aka the Grandma Who Stepped Up, than with my own parents. But it still hurts … but I didn't know her since she was like Rob's age. That was your daughter. That's gotta hurt. But you never complain.”

“Complaining doesn't help me do anything I have to do,” Capt. Ludlow said, “and as you see every day, my energy is pretty taxed. I mean, I could complain about being turned into a living disco ball, and then being power-washed five minutes later, but what would that do?”

“Nothing,” Andrew said. “I get it, kinda. Complaining can feel like something, sometimes, though.”

“Well, we do sometimes need to say how we really feel about situations,” Capt. Ludlow said, “but the thing is, do so to those who can help you. I am in silent prayer often, and part of that it is being honest with the Lord about what bothers me. Every day, at some point, I talk to the Lord about your mother and your uncle Robert Jr., and the pain. I wish they both could have lived to see all y'all. Nothing can be changed except the Lord knows what to do with that pain.”

“You didn't say that you wished they lived so y'all could get to love each other, too,” Andrew said. “I noticed that when we talked about Uncle Robert's birthday, too.”

“Like Grayson, and like y'all's mother, Anne, you are very detail-oriented,” Capt. Ludlow said. “I'm not an ordinary man. I lived every day for decades in the mind of being willing to die at any moment for the needs of my unit. So, in considering the Ludlow unit, I removed myself from consideration because you and your siblings and cousins were in the greatest need. Had they chosen you, and never spoken with me again, I would have been OK with that. I'm a tough old soldier. I could live with that.”

“You did say that too,” Andrew said. “But because my mother was your kid … didn't you hope that someday things would be good again?”

Capt. Ludlow took his time with that answer, a fact Andrew noted.

“An aging parent's mind works differently than you think,” he said, “because I remember the sweetness of Anne's childhood love for me … we parents always miss that loving trust, and often wish those tender days would return. I also worked to build an adult relationship, so, yes, I hoped … but then we just ran out of time.”

“What do you mean?” Andrew said.

“You and the rest needed a set of stable parents,” Capt. Ludlow said. “It got past time that we parental failures could keep going back over the details of our failures; someone had to choose to focus on getttng it right for y'all.”

“Do you really think you failed my mother and my uncle?” Andrew said.

“From the beginning,” Capt. Ludlow said, “because I did not choose their mother wisely. Like I told Amanda and Edwina, you can't get good results from a wrong start.”

“Well, Papa, you're definitely not a failure now,” Andrew said. “You're the greatest grandpa dad I know!”

“And every day, I gotta get greater still, with God's help,” the captain said.

“Well, you are making progress,” Andrew said, “because I've been wondering when you were going to decide to just take George out so he wouldn't do it to himself with this latest scheme, but I realized that if it didn't happen this week, it wouldn't – I don't know if we could have got through yesterday back in April!”

“Which is why I need to get greater still – who knows what George is hatching up for two days from now?” Capt. Ludlow said.

Andrew considered this, and then put the broom and the dustpan back where they belonged while shaking his head.

“Yeah, Papa, get greater still, because, yeah.”