Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay
“See, you can learn a lot from listening to people's really big sisters – Gracie was explaining that Vanna her biggest sister said to a friend that she has a Great Value type of man, and so when you get used to being around people of great value because you are too, you just stop accepting calls from people who don't know their value or yours either!”
Mrs. Maggie Lee, big cousin to eight-year-old Edwina Ludlow, felt like she was learning how her husband, Col. H.F. Lee, could stay calm and keep a straight face … because if you cared about those you had charge of, you just didn't give them every emotional reaction.
“Well,” he said later, “everyone learns about 'the burden of command' in a different way. I dare say West Point never taught what we are learning now, about how you can't explain to Edwina that Gracie's sister Vanna was telling her friend that she got her man at basically the dollar store!”
“Gracie was trying so hard to teach the right lesson on the wrong material, and Edwina got the message!” Mrs. Lee said as she fell out laughing. “I just couldn't mess it up!”
“See, I really got it when Gracie explained it like that!” Edwina had said. “I know that God made me! I know God made us! I don't need to put up with anybody who doesn't get that – I don't have to be bothered! All I gotta do is go to the kid's section in the Great Value store, get me an eight-year-old version of Cousin Harry, and I'm set for life! We are Great Value people living and working with Great Value people – we don't need to break bad on anyone else! We just need to take them back to the store they came from, or leave them at the curbside pickup, or have Cousin Harry let them know they better stop delivering themselves to our house! It all makes sense now, and I can just be a sweet little girl and stay cute and unbothered!”
“Yes, let the childen be cute and unbothered – this is the purpose of 'the burden of command,' written in household terms!” Col. Lee said.
“Hey … we just picked up something else we're going to need when our child comes,” Mrs. Lee said, and the colonel stopped short and was silent for several moments.
“Indeed,” he said. “Our Ludlow cousins and their friends are making sure we get all the advanced training … but can you imagine Gracie as a babysitter?”
Mrs. Lee fell out laughing again, and her husband, always accepting of the burden of command, smiled and thus kept the rest of his thoughts to himself … that was a deep insight, and he needed time to process it. He did not often misdirect Mrs. Lee … but he also did not think she should see him breaking down and sobbing too often, overwhelmed with how gently and thoroughly he was being led back to fatherhood, step by step. Another portion of his heart yielded up that 26-year-old pain of losing his son at just 18 years old … another part of him became ready to be a father again at age 47.
Mrs. Lee, later that night, felt the change that insight had brought to her husband … he generally relaxed in her presence, but it took him quite a while to physically shake off the decades of habit that a person 27 years undiagnosed with bipolar disorder develops to handle “the burden of command.” He generally held himself in incredible tension, and because of his immaculate physical upkeep he could do this … but he was getting older, and given that the Lee he most resembled had passed away from cardiovascular troubles at only 63, he was working on modifying those habits, and Mrs. Lee was assisting him. Every bit of his healing translated into a few minutes' sooner into relaxation and rest, and also how deep his willingness was to consider what was necessary to live a long life. He had not particularly desired that before meeting his second wife … he had collapsed at the funeral of his wife and son and actually fallen into the grave, and there was a part of him that considered himself having actually died there.
But, the burden of command … he had acknowledged the miracle by which his heart had restarted, not noticed (yet) that the Army had conveniently not noted his 'myocardial infarction' at the age of 18 – a massive heart attack that he had survived without permanent damage! – and just gone on to do what he felt was his duty to do once his mind had cleared from all of it … age 19 to 45, brilliantly going on … but not desiring any of those years … not connected to them in some ways … but “the burden of command” had kept everyone else from knowing any of this.
But now, Col. Lee was reconnecting to life, fully … and Mrs. Lee thought that the sooner they could make the permanent move to the Veteran's Lodge to live with the Ludlows and Trents on the cul-de-sac, the better. There was still a week to go before the Ludlow grandparents were back and settled back in … Mrs. Lee prayed that permission would come soon from the Lodge for the Lees to move a home onto that third lot.
