Source
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“What do you mean we're not going to have a big funeral for either Col. Gebhardt or Gen. Haversack? What kind of foolishness is this – just because they messed up at the end doesn't mean that their entire lives should be forgotten? Maj. Thibeadoux got his respect, so we're not going to just sit here –.”
“Yes, we are, Lieutenant.”
Col. H.F. Lee had a bitter pill to take for himself and then to give to many of the men who served with him – his first adjutant and his own mentor had died owing to too long self-medicating and not seeking professional help, and their families were too exhausted to try to work out a big show for them.
“With the pandemic, the burden is too heavy on the Haversacks and the Gebhardts because our colleagues died more like Col. Falstaff, who also did not have a big service. Maj. Thibeadoux not only had an exemplary service record, but put in decades more in public service right down to the day he died – many, many people were willing to help the Thibeadouxes with the expense and logistics. But this was also before the recent infrastructure tragedies and related upheaval that have overtaken the county along with the deepening problems of the pandemic. It cannot be done now.”
“Forget the pandemic – a soldier shouldn't have to be perfect to receive a good eulogy! Everybody can't be like Maj. Thibeadoux and you, Colonel – we should still be able to be honored by our buddies and loved ones in the same manner that we went out into unspeakable situations and served!”
“We know from Gen. Haversack's last words that he repented of the trouble he had brought his wife, and we know that Col. Gebhardt would not have wanted his niece to go into bankruptcy.”
“But what about what this country owes us? No soldier should go with out the proper ceremony if he served well – and you know Col. Gebhardt and Gen. Haversack did!”
“If the cost were only monetary, I would foot the bill myself, Lieutenant, but even I cannot force a venue, and then enforce the proper protocols to ensure that the physically weakest among us are protected from Covid-19. Remember that some of our friends are immuno-compromised. I respect your anti-vaccine position, but what that means is, you must understand that we must take the responsibility of caring for those who can be destroyed even by a common cold. Col. Gebhardt and Gen. Haversack looked out for all of us. We must continue the legacy.”
There was long silence on the phone.
“I love you but I hate you, Colonel – why you gotta be so perfect and right all the time?”
“Gen. Haversack was my mentor. Col. Gebhardt was my first adjutant. In their time, they both were just the same and both taught and served with me well. I owe them, in all matters of life and death, the same attention to duty for you and the rest who loved them.”
There was another long silence.
“Can't we at least have a Zoom get-together?”
“I am already planning that, Lieutenant. I will send out a notice when I have some days and times. Things are crazy in Big Loft again, but I will not forget.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
“Of course, Lieutenant.”
Col. Lee hung up the phone and put another check mark by another name … 20 bitter pills handed out and gotten down by the people that needed to get them down, dozens to go …
But the colonel turned his phone off for the day. It was enough to have had to take the same bitter pill. It was more than than enough to take on twenty different angry reactions a day to that pill, not because the men making the reaction bothered him, but because each of them echoed a portion of his own deep frustration and rage with the entire situation.
The colonel went out onto his back porch to clear his head for a little while, and was pleasantly surprised by eight-year-old Edwina Ludlow, one of his eight little Ludlow cousins, coming over to talk with him.
“So, I'm not saying I've been eavesdropping although I will admit to it if you ask because I'm not even afraid of prison much less being grounded when stuff gotta get done,” she said.
In the distance, Col. Lee could hear Mrs. Thalia Ludlow laughing and saw the silhouette of Capt. R.E. Ludlow just shaking his head … nobody started a conversation as brazenly as Edwina!
“I know that people you cared about betrayed you like my parents chose their drugs over me and my siblings and betrayed us. I know you're mad. So am I, but it does get better after a while, because we are loved here, and we don't abandon each other.”
“Yes, ma'am,” the colonel said as he picked his little cousin up. “It just got a whole lot better for me; thank you.”
“Well, I mean, you help me all the time, so, it's my turn,” Edwina said. “We're mad, but we are going to get through this!”
“Yes, we are,” Col. Lee said. “Yes, we are, Edwina. Other people's decisions are not going to stop us from becoming a sweet little girl and a man of peace – with the capacity to break bad if absolutely necessary, of course.”
“Of course! There's bad guys and traitors out here!” Edwina said. “But, I finally realize there is more to life, and I'm just going to live it and you are too!”
“Affirmative,” Col. Lee said, and kissed Edwina on her forehead before snuggling her and carrying her back home to go to bed.
“I'm glad you enjoyed that little baby warmup,” Mrs. Maggie Lee said as he returned to their home, “because I'm going on snuggle duty for you, Harry, too.”
“I am reporting as ordered, ma'am!” he said, and opened his arms to his wife with a laugh.