“So, what I don't understand is, how are you dealing with the pandemic and the fact that we can't do the things we want to do, Captain?”
“You don't understand because we want different things, Major.”
Capt. R.E. Ludlow, in conversing with Maj. T.E. Gaines, was sighing internally, but also understanding why the Veteran's Lodge was offering him a job. There was a need for someone who could talk to the middling officer core and get through to them about how they and reality did not have to be at war … although, granted, the pandemic was complicating matters for everyone.
“OK, so what are you able to do with the way our own country has locked us down?”
“I am a family man, and I enjoy my family greatly, Major. In terms of conquering the world … well, we belong to the greatest military on earth, so close enough. I put in 33 years and have nothing to prove to anyone.”
“You know … I haven't thought about it that way, Captain... my children and grandchildren are right here in the same block, too … and we've been talking for years about all the stuff we want to do together.”
“So, just be together, Major. Let me tell you: I wish I could be with my children, but I buried them both two years ago. Life comes at us fast.”
“Oh, Captain … my condolences for your loss!”
“Thank you. What I am telling you in sharing that: don't miss what you can do for worrying about all that we can't. Love your children and grandchildren. It will not be long before the little ones are grown and gone … and since we are in our late fifties, we must also account for the fact that if we do not keep ourselves from fretting, we may leave them before they leave us.”
“Yeah, my doctor is telling me I need to stop stressing... you're right, Captain. There's a lot I can do with my entire family even with everything that is going on.”
“Go enjoy, Major. Let your loss of the busyness of the world system be your utmost gain, across your generations.”
When Capt. Ludlow got off the phone, his eleven-year-old granddaughter Eleanor, who had been listening, tackled him from behind with a big bear hug.
“Thank you for loving us and thinking of us as being enough!” she said.
“You are more than enough,” he said, and picked her up … and remembered he was 58, and that the years in which he could do that were not going to be forever, because Eleanor was going to be a big, tall woman like her mother and biological grandmother had been … and then kissed her forehead and put her down and watched her go running back outside, a happy child with a hopeful outlook for the future.
