“OK, so then, when the queen dies in a beehive, if they cannot replace her with some eggs, boom – no more civilization. Human families are more adaptable sometimes, but not always.”
“Not always,” Mrs. Melissa Trent said to her eleven-year-old daughter Velma as Velma was reading about honeybees … she left her middle daughter in her reading and thought about the phone call she had just gotten.
“They did what at Mama Lobelia's funeral that they were not supposed to have – how many people got arrested – there's going to be another funeral – what?”
Mrs. Lobelia Henry deserved better and had been enjoying better since passing away with a smile at age 105 all the way back in June 2020 – but some of the branches of the family had been fighting ever since over her legacy and how they wanted to celebrate her and had decided on a “speakeasy” funeral but then some members had started fighting – and then, after all that, Covid-19 had swept through the family and killed two members.
However, Mrs. Trent had heard of all this through her childhood friend who was Mrs. Henry's granddaughter from two of the “quiet” branches of the family … they had stayed out of the drama and let the drama branches fight with each other and point fingers while they quietly inherited, and then made sure Mr. Henry's favorite students also got their bequests.
Mrs. Trent had gotten her bequest with a letter from Mrs. Henry, who had heard how she had gone to mental health treatment and was back with her family. Mrs. Henry had left a second honeymoon gift, and said to kiss all of the Trent children.
Mrs. Trent had called her friend, and then heard the sad story of what had been happening overall. That had saddened her, and Velma's reading had reminded her of it … but she then remembered to go back and give Velma her kiss from Mrs. Henry, and to remember what her friend had said.
“Grandma warned me it was going to be like this,” she said, “because you can teach Godly wisdom to all your generations but your generations have to choose for themselves how they are going to receive it or fight with it. That's the fight going on – but Grandma also said that by wisdom, not by blood, the true family would continue. It's never going to be the way it was … but we live toward what will be.”