Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay
As lightning had its festival outside the doors, Capt. R.E. Ludlow and wife Thalia cuddled up on the sofa after getting their frightened youngest grandchildren out from under their beds. Instead, the five youngest grandchildren cuddled up with them on the sofa and eventually went to sleep while the two oldest grandchildren, 10-year-old Andrew and 11-year-old Eleanor, documented the storm.
“Like my white foster grandmother said,” Andrew said, “this here is a big 'un.”
“Yep,” Eleanor said. “Biggest storm of the spring. Notes of thunder that rival Grandpa's voice.”
“Yep,” Andrew said. “I was just reading about positive-charge lightning – that's what we are getting now, and that's the basso profundo thunder and huge straight bolts we are seeing.”
Meanwhile, since it was perfectly impossible to hear anything more than a foot away, Mrs. Ludlow snuck a kiss on her husband's cheek.
“I'm so proud of you, Robert,” she purred. “You went through it yesterday with house to house combat, and then my plan for a quiet morning backfired before your big meeting, and we can't get our little light blondes back to blond-headed. You still have stayed calm and sweet and have not rivaled this storm for thundering.”
“To God be the glory for the things He has done,” said Capt. R.E. Ludlow, quoting the old hymn. “The Spirit of God has kept me these 48 hours perfectly, and given me peace about all things I have seen and experienced. I am going to need to do my counseling for all that happened yesterday, but to have been able to come home to all this peace and love … to live to see my grandchildren working to change their hair color at all is a deep and wonderful blessing.”
Mrs. Ludlow kissed her husband's chin again.
“How are you doing with the thunder and all?” she asked.
“I know what it is, and it does not remind me of shelling or war,” he said. “I always thought those sounds were a notable perversion of the real thing, which is what we are hearing now.”
“We ought to have our own victory festival later on,” Mrs. Ludlow said. “You deserve a hero's homecoming.”
Capt. Ludlow bent his head and met his wife's lips, and that was a spark to add to those going on outside.
“It's easier to be a hero when you do such fabulous homecomings,” he purred, and for a moment, his eldest grandchildren heard his deep, rumbling chuckle.
“You know, Grandpa has the thunder beat although it is doing its best,” Eleanor said. “It can't laugh like that.”
“I suppose only God has Grandpa beat on that,” Andrew said, with a smile.
Bonus footage: Positive charge lightning is DIFFERENT than what most of are used to -- bigger, stronger, and with louder thunder!
