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It was sometimes incredibly sad to see seven-year-old Amanda Ludlow approach new items in the world for her and show how she had been treated in foster home …
“That would be an awfully big ball to have to hurt somebody with,” she said when she encountered the exercise ball that came bouncing out of the Trent house because nine-year-old Milton was using it a little differently than the instructions said.
Yet it was also incredibly hopeful to see her, as the ball far bigger around than she was rolled up to her, reach the correct conclusion …
“But nobody does that around here, so this could be fun.”
“That's what I was saying!” cried Milton.
By the time Mrs. Melissa Trent noticed her ball was missing, Sgt. Trent found it.
“These children are out here playing netless big-time volleyball with it – of course without permission!” he said. “BUT, consider this: the soda pickup is about to happen, so all eight little Ludlows and Trents are out of the way!”
“That's true, Vincent,” Mrs. Trent said. “I was just saying I was going to replace that one anyway – a little too light, feels a little too much like a balloon.”
“Manufacturing is getting questionable in the pandemic,” Sgt. Trent said. “It is getting to the point that although I am not the billionaire of the family, I call your dad to find out where he gets things for your mother.”
Mrs. Trent chuckled.
“This tickles him so much,” she said, “because he enjoys seeing how you find a way to get whatever it is you want for me from his sources, without his money … it reminds him of when I was small, and he and Mom didn't have much money yet.”
Sgt. Trent smiled.
“Something I never told you,” he said. “Your father was not keen on a mere army grunt marrying you, as you know, but he told me later that he admired my ingenuity in meeting your high standards. 'You're not the kind of man who usually becomes rich in the world, but you also are not the type of man who needs to,' he said to me.”
“And that was why I picked you,” Mrs. Trent said. “It has taken my father 66 years to remember what we loved him for when we had nothing -- that loving ingenuity. Now, he doesn't need the money either. Nothing to prove in a world in which nobody cares anyway.”
Sgt. Trent considered this.
“Remember, Melissa, that your sons, your husband, and your father go through something you don't. Yes, the country we live in still does not honor Black men as such – as men. From our school days on, we see this. So, sometimes, we take the measurements that other men use and have to prove things for ourselves, and the biggest measurement in the country is money. In our human nature, we have to do this – everyone can't mature in Christ at the same rate. It does not excuse the problems in the path, but Melissa, Black boys and men are people too. Your dad, larger than life, is still just a person, having taken all the time it took for him to discover how to be a man with God while making a little money along the way.”
Mrs. Trent considered this.
“You've got a good point, Vincent. I hadn't considered it that way, but, you've got a good point.”
Sgt. Trent's phone buzzed.
“Oh – soda pickup, imminent,” he said. “If the little ones tire of their game, distract them by asking them how they are scoring it. Melvin is going to get the key from Mrs. Ludlow so he can move out their soda portion, so he and I will be occupied and need those kids to stay out of the way.”
“Got it, Vincent.”