Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, August 12, 2025
One of the things eleven-year-old Velma Trent was, and was going to be, was a painter. Already at eleven years old, her work drew a crowd.
“Her trees have personalities and remind us of people we love,” eight-year-old Gracie Trent said to ten-year-old Glendella Ludlow.
Glendella thought about this, and then thought some more, and then looked at the wallet she had brought with her when she had run away from her grandparents to safety with her Ludlow cousins. There was plenty of money in it for a ten-year-old. She had kept all of her allowance from her grandparents – three years' worth. Her great-uncle Vanderbilt and great-aunt Susanna had always given her money for church and bought sweets for her on the weekends, so there was nothing for her to spend it on.
Until now.
“So, I was reading up,” she said to Velma, “and I know you just aren't supposed to just ask people to make art for you. You're supposed to commission it, so, I'd like to commission you to do a little painting of two trees that are like my great-aunt and great-uncle.”
Glendella pulled out her handkerchief.
“Aunt Susanna had cancer, so, she and Uncle Vanderbilt couldn't adopt me, but, they made sure I was good every weekend since like forever, and now they are really going through it because of my even crazier relatives, and I gotta do something.”
“Art encouragement,” Velma said. “I'm with it.”
Glendella pulled out $10 in one-dollar bills.
“Is $10 enough?”
“Plenty – I'm actually going to split it with Vertran my cousin because we can do so much more with art nowadays. I need you to tell us about your aunt and uncle, and then we'll take part of that and have it in a video with just you talking, and some of it as a voiceover while I paint on a time lapse. That way, they can know the why and the how, and play the video over and over and over.”
“If I bring you another $5, can you ask your big brother Melvin to add a beat?”
“Sure!”
So this had been in process for about a week before Vanderbilt Ludlow arrived in safety at the same place Glendella did: at the home of Capt. R.E. Ludlow their big cousin. Capt. Ludlow's reputation was so fearsome as an army officer, and so recently known in how he completely broke mentally his cousin Astor for daring to threaten him, that the rest of Glendella and Vanderbilt's branch of Ludlows knew not to even try it.
Susanna Ludlow had been sent by her husband even further afield, but, upon hearing from Capt. Ludlow that her husband had fallen ill from the stress, she flew back and arrived early Saturday morning.
“So, we're just adopting all the sane people in Glendella's family?” seven-year-old Amanda Ludlow asked her ten-year-old big brother Andrew when Susanna arrived at their home as the latest guest.
“Well, Mandie,” he said, “it is kinda what we do.”
“Yup, Andy, it is,” she said. “Guess we better get ready for introductions and snugglecouragement!”
“Just got the video out of editing!” nine-year-old Vertran Stepforth said to his cousin Velma.
“Oh, this is going to be so perfect,” Velma said. “Let me go get the painting out from under wraps.”
So, later that day, after reuniting with her aunt and uncle, Glendella went and got the flash drive from Vertran, and then asked Capt. Ludlow, “Can I borrow the computer and big screen we use for church for a few minutes? I got something I need y'all to see.”
“I do not allow us to be surprised except on good things,” Capt. Ludlow said, “so you will have to tell me a little more.”
“That's fair, Upgrade Papa.”
So she told him.
“I'll get everything hooked up for you, Glendella,” he said, “and gather everyone around.”
Meanwhile, in the Trent house, Velma, Vertran, and Melvin got their whole family out, and the Lees heard Capt. Ludlow saying, “Gather on the yard – Glendella, Velma, Vertran and Melvin have an art presentation for us.”
Capt. Ludlow arranged things so Vanderbilt and Susanna and Glendella would be centered, and then let the video rip – and there was Glendella, bigger than life.
“So, I'm commissioning this painting from Velma Trent who does these amazing things with trees and people, for my great-uncle and great-aunt Vanderbilt and Susanna Ludlow, who have had my back and are really the reason I even lived through the abandonment and neglect I was going through up to ten years old. They are going through so much themselves right now, but I need them to know that I love them, and I see them as beautiful.”
Then came a timelapse of all the days Velma spent painting, with Glendella coming in and out to check out the work and talk with her about things as the painting took shape … two windswept evergreens, grown into and supporting each other, with a little baby tree growing protected in their shelter. A mellow but slowly building beat, getting more and more joyful and hopeful with every added track, was playing.
“There's a lot of bad stuff that happened,” Glendella said on her voiceover, “but every weekend, they made good things happen – they took me to their house to live a decent life and eat good food and go to church and Sunday dinner, and in church we all had real friends. That gave me a chance to meet Mrs. Mosette Smith, and also Jesus, so, that's how I got saved too. God used my uncle and aunt to get me where I need to be so I could get to know God, and know He loved me, too, and was going to get me out.
"There's kids my age committing suicide and stuff, but that's never going to be me, because God had the right ones all around me and then came and told me Himself when to go to safety. But I had to get to there, and I wouldn't have without Uncle Vanderbilt and Aunt Susanna. Sometimes, people just are there and help you just being there, and that's the type of people they are.”
“This the kind of painting thing I love to do,” said Velma in her voiceover, “because family is everything. God sent His Son to die on a tree to save us so we could be part of His family, and I love doing family tree art because it's kinda the point of everything. Glendella told me the story of her uncle and aunt and it came to me what they looked like in tree form real quick.”
Velma walked up with the painting, still wrapped, and handed it to Glendella, who handed it to her disbelieving aunt and uncle, who then unwrapped the painting and saw themselves and Glendella as she had commissioned them to be presented by Velma.
“See, this is why watercolor isn't right for every job,” Velma said. “I just knew they were going to start bawling, and watercolor was never going to work.”
“Ain't it the truth, Velma,” her sister eight-year-old Gracie said.
“This is also why you back up the video in a couple of places, too, because computers and tears don't mix,” Vertran said.
“Ain't it the truth, Vertran.”
