Recently I
posted about the Get Lit! competition and placing in the final round. As part of the challenge, we had to incorporate a milking stool into our storyline. I entered the contest alongside a writing buddy and will have to see how they feel about sharing their own milking stool entry here (or in the comments)
(link to A Donkey In Mitford:https://kellybrewer.blogspot.com/2025/01/a-donkey-in-mitford.html )
The milking stool in my story was one of the family heirloom variety, one that served as a stepping stool for short grannies, a time out for wayward tots and a doll table long after its service to the bovines in the barn was replaced by PET's door-to-door milk deliveries.
In the fictional family I wrote about, I included traits inspired by some of my own family members. Historically, the contest was only open to people in North Carolina or with roots in North Carolina (which I have) so I spent extra time choosing names for my characters based on North Carolina towns.
Closer to my heart, I made reference to a place in Lenoir, NC that really exists under a slightly different name and which really does offer mountains of hope to those in need. And I shared "Reading Hallway" - a real thing I did for my own kids when they were little.
I pulled from Mitford one of my favorite inspirations- "Thy Will Be Done" -the prayer that never fails.
It has been a helpful frame for me over the years.
I've abbreviated it from four words down to a mere two: Thy Will...
Whether interpreted as sitting still and yielding myself to a Will higher than my own, or parking my own will in time out - the net result is the same... not mine, but Thine be done.
The writing reception didn't go as planned, as I mentioned in that post, and it sort of sidelined all the other plans I had made - including small trinkets/ornaments inspired by my story.
But today, I clear the cache a little more and share my entry for your enjoyment and critique, along with the slapdash craft that only turned out so, so.
To open as a document, click here:
DEAR READER:
Finalist in the Mitford GetLit! Writing Competition
(link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fcNLCpYuIPdnZoce73Yu4NMjY4Xq4TFfxgSn3IwcUuc/edit )
...or simply read on...
DEAR READER by Kelly Brewer
Grandma Clovis was dead.
After more practice rounds than Augusta National, Clovis Jean Baker had finally tripped the Light Fantastic
for real. But this story is not about her death–it’s about what happened next.
In the early days of her diagnosis, Clovis wasted no time getting her house in order.
“While I still have the mind to!” she quipped.
Grandma preferred punchlines to frown lines and often called on the wisdom of her own patron saint,
Pollyanna, for ways to be “glad in it”--whatever “it” turned out to be.
A few years in and her tendency to start every other sentence with “When I’m gone…” barely startled
them anymore. Sometimes, it seemed as if that was all she talked about.
Life is funny but so is death.
For all the close calls and conversations, they found that they still weren't nearly prepared.
In the end, despite all she had survived, Clovis was finite. They knew this about her. We all know this
about each other. Yet somehow, they conspired to keep it a secret from themselves.
It is true, Dear Reader, that one can never be fully prepared for certain events until they happen, but it is
equally true that we must learn this time and again for ourselves.
~ * ~
The practical stuff was paid for long ago: the preacher, the plot, and the coffin with its economical lining.
But who would write the obituary? How did she want her hair? A list of final directives certainly
existed, but where?
In the days leading up to her funeral, the Baker bunch combed the halls of their childhood home like raiders searching for an ark. They scurried and scrambled. They cobbled together what they could remember and improvised what they could not.
And then, Gentle Reader, they buried her.
Funerals are deadlines without extension. Ready or not, we submit what we’ve got, nailing the door for
future edits closed. We bury our lingering regrets and adorn them with flowers.
And so, just like that, finding the right shade of lipstick to bury a Patrician Winter in and the service bulletin’s multiple misspellings ceased to matter.
For this is not the story of a funeral. It is the story of those left behind.
~ * ~
Like the fabled Blue Moon of All Hallows’ Eve, a loved one’s funeral has the power to open a realm of
startling truth and clarity, previously unseen.
Secrets are divulged and shoeboxes spill out their sentiment. Coin jars are counted, confessions are made and a person’s internet history is revealed.
Piles of treasure and goodwill line the halls as every cabinet and drawer is emptied.
Casserole dishes and mixing bowls, cookbooks and that one wooden spoon, children fight one last time
over cleaning out the kitchen.
Perhaps you’ve got an antique aunt or great oaken uncle of your own? One who, after holding on to
that last deciduous leaf for dear life (and the better part of a decade), finally let go of what turns out to
be the family's final straw.
Maybe you have ducked from the path of flying flatware or dodged sly attempts to pass on Buck, the
blind and spastic dog. It can be ghastly.
Let’s take a peek at how the Baker bunch is managing.
“You are such a sneak, Fletcher! You knew I was planning to keep it!” Charlotte was berating her baby
brother from the doorway of his childhood bedroom “Give it back to me!”
“I’m going to give it to you alright, Charley Horse! I told you to trust me. Now get out of here!” Fletcher was on the floor, curled around a squat wooden stool that belonged to
their mother, recently procured from his sister’s room. He gripped the front legs like the horns of an altar
and used his foot to kick the door closed.
Fletcher hadn’t meant for the door to slam, but the sound echoed through the house all the same,
commanding everyone’s attention.
Great! Now it would be a whole thing.
Clovis was clear regarding earthly possessions: no fussing or squabbling, and no robbing her peace over a pie dish. She had often implored them when they visited to go ahead and put their names on the things they would like to keep. But they found it far too macabre and never did as they were told.
Kenly and Cameron, twins and joint-heirs to the middle by their fraternal bond, sat at the kitchen table
sorting buttons from coins, unopened mail and minutiae. At the sound of the door slamming, they
exchanged glances and carefully rose from their balanced stacks.
Cam went toward Charlotte’s room leaving Kenly to handle Fletcher. She had always had a better way with him, more nurturing and maternal, while Cam and Charlotte spoke the same native, no-nonsense tongue.
"Char? May I come in?" Cam could soften the bass of his 'radio voice' when necessary. He entered
gingerly and sat on the edge of Charlotte's bed. "Are you ok? What was that all about?"
Charlotte was at her desk, phone in hand, scrolling mindlessly.
“Nothing. Just grief setting in. We’re all so tired. He can have it if it means that much, I just didn’t
want him messing it up, that’s all.”
"Messing what up, hon?" Cam asked, more coddling than usual.
“Ma’s stool” Charlotte was still looking at her phone, but tears spilled over, onto the screen. She wiped
them away and after a quiet moment,added “I learned to read on that stool.”
Cameron remembered the “Reading Hallway”well. Unable to be in both the girls’ and boys’ rooms at once, Clovis improvised by placing the old milking stool mid-hallway “between East Egg and West Egg” and propping her back against the wall.
The stories she told were nightlights, ordinary words spun into gold and glowing against the darkened
hall.
Stories, plural.
Clovis enjoyed the stories as much as the kids. It was not unusual to hear half a dozen short stories or chapter upon chapter of an epic classic in one night. She was sure to add voices and sound effects.
They became Narnian citizens from her place on that stool. They snuck past Smaug with Bilbo Baggins
and soared through night skies with the Little Prince and Peter Pan.
As they learned to read, it was a treat to perch on that oft-painted stool and ‘sound-it-out’ until their siblings fell asleep from the sheer exhaustion of stories-over-speedbumps. Together, they
had Hopped on Pop and counted Mr. Popper’s Penguins, fell asleep with Homer Price and woke up with
a hankering for doughnuts.
"Char, I’m sure he will be careful," Cam assured her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. But what
he said next was more 'I hope' than 'I know'.
"The woodshop at Mercy Colony has been so good for his recovery. I’m sure he’s just planning to
polish it or something. Do something for Ma, you know? Show us what he knows."
Charlotte knew her younger brother was right. Fletcher needed an opportunity to shine for a change.
~ * ~
In Fletcher’s room, Kenly’s knockless entrance caught Fletcher pulling a small hand saw from his
knapsack.
She suddenly dreaded the rising confrontation. “What in Tar Heel Nation, Fletch?!”
He spun toward her with a shushing finger then whispered a furtive explanation which we cannot know,
Quiet Reader, for they were whispering.
Converted from confidant to accomplice in three minutes flat, Kenly guarded the door from further
intrusion while Fletcher worked the saw.
~ * ~
Charlotte was still scrolling, unfocused, when Kenly walked in with the sacred relic.
"Hey, Char?" Kenly waited for Charlotte's eyes to meet her own. "The stool is safe. It's right here.
Take it home to Kitty and Otto–show them how we used it like a table."
Like a child after pitching a successful hissy-fit, Charlotte tried to remain somber about getting her own
way, as if to earn what was already given. “I’ll teach them to read here,” Char bargained, “and to turn
around and pray.”
Charlotte took the stool from Kenly and hugged it close to her heart. She found the chiseled grooves
on the stool’s broad face and traced the familiar words with her fingers, THY WILL.
A prayer Clovis taught them to pray when other words were few.
As she traced the letters again and again, her lips formed the silent words and her heart conformed to
the prayer.
~*~
I would love to tell you Fletcher graduated from Mercy Colony in time for Thanksgiving dinner. And
it would have been nice to show you Kitty and Otto drinking hot cocoa at a little, prayerful table.
Most of all, I want to tell you that the delicate ornaments, nestled in Fletcher’s bag, really were cut from the legs of that old milking stool; how the years of paint, like tree rings, framed simple, indelible words; a powerful, ineffable prayer. You may even wonder if the woodshop at Mercy Colony is still there.
Dear Reader, I wish I could tell you, but that is another story.
