“Look, I stay out here gardening because it helps me think better. I'm trying to be a sweet little girl, but there are still some people that need beating up, so I'm trying not to think about it as much.”
“Well, it's a good thing I'm your brown grandma now,” Mrs. Velma Stepforth said to eight-year-old Edwina Ludlow from next door, “so, just like I love Gracie and Velma, you are loved and safe in this garden.”
Edwina ran to Mrs. Stepforth, grabbed her legs, and started bawling – just another big release of emotion, and Mrs. Stepforth just picked her up, fully understanding, and let the little girl cry it out.
“Yeah, you kinda do want to go beat up people who abuse children when you consider what that child has been through,” 16-year-old Tom Stepforth said, “but I imagine they already met the beater-upper in that case!”
“Look,” 21-year-old Melvin Trent, Tom's cousin said, “when the Lord gets done with what you are doing but still doesn't think you are worthy of His personal visit, if EVER he sends Capt. Robert Edward 'Hell to Pay' Ludlow after you, the beating-upping is assured! Those folks will ONLY leave prison to go to Hell unless they repent!”
“In which case they will leave to go to Heaven – some of that man's grandchildren are like the last of hundreds of charges these slave-owning foster parents got caught up on,” Tom said. “I read it all up because it's a slow news week – I'm telling you, foster care in the Mid-Atlantic states may never be the same!”
“Edwina comes by her belligerent attitude lawfully!” Melvin said. “Her grandfather beat the systems of three entire states halfway in over two years of getting those seven grandchildren here – after 33 years of beating the enemies of the United States into submission!”
“But see, that's why they both need therapy,” Tom said, “because that's gotta be hard to turn off.”
“Look,” Melvin said, “Dad and I kept our guns loaded and Vanna was riding point, day and night while Capt. Ludlow was getting over his brief reversion to racist behavior – and after he recovered himself, that man had the audacity to say, 'Yes, that is exactly what you should have been doing as a family when a man like me is reverting to bad training – shoot to kill, every time. Don't let a man like me get up.'”
“My gosh – he's bold!” Tom said.
“Like I said, Edwina comes by it lawfully!” Melvin said, “but it's cute to notice how she is tracking him in trying to heal, too. I think they are all going to make it now, because they want to … and yeah, our grandma is the best brown grandma ever, so yeah, Edwina is definitely going to make it.”
“So then, you're doing the right thing, little Eddie,” Mrs. Stepforth was saying to the little girl. “When the bad thoughts – that's that big word 'inappropriate,' meaning 'not proper' – come, we have to remember who we are. Some people need beating up. They do. But you're a sweet little girl. I'm Brown Grandma. It's not proper for us to be even thinking about doing all that. So, what we learn to do is trust God and keep doing what He has for us to do. It's inappropriate – not proper – for sweet little girls and their brown grandmas to be beating people up, so we're just going to trust God to take care of those that need it as they need it, and keep on gardening.”
“OK,” Edwina said. “I can do this!”
“Of course you can, my sweet little peach-blushed granddaughter.”
“Ain't it the truth,” eight-year-old Gracie Trent said as she came and embraced Edwina and her actual grandmother.