Day 822: 5 Minute Freewrite CONTINUATION: Monday - Prompt: Oatmeal

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It is strange, the cravings people have when they are triggered.

For Captain H.F. Lee, all he wanted in the world was great-aunt Mildred's oatmeal made with milk, molasses, butter, and cinnamon, with walnuts and dried fruit from Fruitland to put on top, and a splash of cold milk to let run around the edges and cool the bowl down so her hungry nephew could dig on in.

Captain Lee's cousin, Captain Hamilton of Tinyville's police, had the recipe and did a Sunday Oatmeal Feed for all of his neighbors, but sometimes, one just couldn't wait.

Captain Lee rarely indulged himself on starches, but that list of names had brought up memories of lists he had to deal with in the Army, and he needed heavy comfort food to go with his specialized prescription regimen … if he went into the crying-for-24-hours spiral, that would cause him to miss Saturday's appointments, but that was all right compared to those episodes of rage he sometimes had. Those were to be avoided. The best that could happen was that he would wreck his entire apartment. God help any person who reminded him of the people he had been so enraged with, and God help him to not be so worked up at not getting those who had hurt his people that he killed himself if he could get nobody else … the trauma patterns in his brain and body were slow to catch up with his genuine repentance.

So – the big kettle came out, and in went the steel-cut oats, water, milk, and molasses for 35 minutes of cooking before the cinnamon and butter went in.

Just then, there was a phone call.

“Good evening, Henry.”

“Good evening, Grandmother Selene.”

“I was thinking about what we read in the Free Voice today, and I have canceled my own invitation to that tea event I had invited you to.”

Captain Lee heard his grandmother take a deep breath, and then let it out.

“I don't party over Black dead families any more,” she said. “I see it now, Henry. I see it all.”

That was the first step toward repentance Selene Slocum-Lofton made – initially, about how she had led the Slocum-Loftons to rejoice that Captain Lee's Black wife and son had died in childbirth, and thus would not receive the inheritance Captain Lee had gotten through his Slocum-Lofton mother.

Henry Fitzhugh Lee sat down and began to shiver as he often did when he had sudden, profound changes of emotion. He was already in a bad state of affairs just from dealing with the news in the Free Voice, but his recognition of his grandmother's change of heart threw him for a more personal loop.

Mrs. Slocum-Lofton went right on.

“I'm telling the people around me that all we need to be eating is oatmeal and humble pie because of what we have allowed to happen, so I will not be going to or inviting people to big, ritzy events until further notice.”

Another big pause.

“I still would like to see you, Henry, when you have time.”

Captain Lee sat up in his chair, and pulled himself together, however temporarily.

“Since you're already eating that pie, Grandmother, guess what I am cooking for dinner?”

“Oatmeal?”

“Yes. Guess what I am doing this weekend?”

“What?”

“My cousins in Tinyville are expanding their oatmeal feed to the whole weekend, and since Captain Hamilton has to work, I'm cooking tomorrow. Want to come to dinner and then run down to Tinyville tomorrow?”

Captain Lee could not believe the words that were coming out of his own mouth, but … .

“Yes, Henry. I've given Tracy the night off, but let me get my Uber together, and I'll be right over. I don't have anything more important to do tomorrow, so yes, let's go do the oatmeal feed.”

Captain Lee had no illusions about his grandmother – he knew she had all kinds of ulterior motives, and one of them was positioning herself as a heroine to all classes in Lofton County. Standing beside him – generally held as an “untouchable” among a corrupt police force and thus a kind of hero – and feeding poor people impacted by the fire would help with that.

Yet what was messing with Captain Lee's emotions so hard was that he sensed that there WAS some genuineness in Mrs. Selene Slocum-Lofton's repentance and action, and if God had granted her that much room to repent, then it might just as well be His will to grant her salvation and full repentance.

I'll do whatever You want me to do, Lord, if You will truly pluck my grandmother from this burning to salvation – I'll do whatever You want me to do, to be part of it. I am Your servant – feed me all the oatmeal and humble pie necessary to get Your will done in me, and in Grandmother!

“I'm at the Rosewood Apartments, no. 413.”

She gasped.

“I rent no. 424 at the Rosewood in order to do work downtown a few days a week without having to travel back and forth – we've been neighbors for a week.”

Captain Lee nearly dropped his cell phone at the thought: indeed, more had been done to draw his grandmother and him together than merely human agency. Room 424 had just been rented Monday, and all his neighbors on the fourth floor had been buzzing about this sprightly, “cute little old woman who moved in with her cute little business pantsuit and her cute little briefcase and cute little rolling suitcase.” That old woman was buying up half the town … but because Captain Lee left so early and always took the stairs, he had never passed that way to the elevator at the right time in the morning to meet that particular old woman.

Confirmation, Lord … what I had not asked for, You just gave me.

“Wonderful – we can have early breakfast together too, and then head on out to Tinyville.”

“I'll be there in an hour, Henry.”

Mutual goodbyes, then Captain Lee set his phone alarm for 25 minutes, dropped his phone, sobbed himself absolutely ill with all the conflicting and terrible emotions triggered and ripping through him, stripped off the clothes he had vomited on, changed, washed up, put the cinnamon and butter in the oatmeal, went, sobbed again for another ten minutes, washed up again, got down the bowls, spoons, glasses place mats, walnuts, raisins, almonds, and the little pitcher of milk to both pour to drink and to splash in the bowls to cool things down … but there would be no hurry this evening. He would have to go slow to keep his food down, and to keep from setting off fits of trembling – where there had been an excess of emotion, there were now terrible voids where it had passed through, like great sinkholes waiting to collapse.

Captain Lee had to go slow, take his medicine, and be very careful … yet it appeared, even from the way she got out of the Uber car, and thanked the driver helping her, and tipped him in cash, that Selene Slocum-Lofton was passing her days of hurting people just because she could. Somewhere in the Scripture, Captain Lee knew it was written that God removed the hearts of stone from people and replaced them with hearts of flesh, that could feel and respond to God and to others properly. He then ate his humble pie … she was coming to him even though he had tried to kill her for that party she had over his wife and son's death, and she had to be afraid too, but also drawn by a Power greater than herself to him.

"Just don't let me get in Your way … perhaps You had to break me, today, so that she can be drawn to You, through me,” Captain Lee prayed as he went the four flights down to the door to meet Mrs. Slocum-Lofton. “I am willing, Lord … don't let me get in Your way, but use me as You see fit.”

At the door – Mrs. Selene-Slocum Lofton was just putting her key in the gate when her grandson swung it open.

“Good evening, Henry,” she said meekly.

“Good evening, Grandmother.”

“Thank you for inviting me to eat oatmeal with you, this terrible evening of this terrible day. I know you have been working hard all week and all day, and I don't have to stay long but can go right down to room 424 and let you rest.”

Lord, she surely has been eating her humble pie, and I need to eat mine ... I said I would never forgive her, never have her in my company again, but I will not resist Your will, and I thank You that I have another chance to make good on my own repentance before You.

“You may stay as long as you like, Grandmother; you are welcome.”

“I truly appreciate that, Henry … you have certainly made me feel welcome, and safe.”

Just inside the door, the Spirit moved upon Henry Fitzhugh Lee, and he, half-unbelieving but obedient, gave his grandmother a warm, full embrace. She stiffened – there was no resisting his massive strength, and she was afraid at first – but then she realized it was genuine, and then returned the embrace.

“I tell you, that oatmeal and humble pie is powerful stuff,” Mrs. Selene Slocum-Lofton would say to her friend Mildred York, much later on.

Photo by Andrea Tummons on Unsplash