Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

A Letter to My Son on His First Birthday

My darling boy,

I peeked in on you while you were sleeping last night, like I usually do. (This isn’t for your sake—it’s purely so I can catch a glimpse of you in a rare freeze-frame moment.) I marveled at your sprawling limbs, growing longer by the day, and the way you now take up most of your crib.

When did this happen, I wonder? It seems like we just graduated you from the bassinet. I remember the way the crib seemed like an ocean at the time, engulfing your tiny curled-up frame.

We like to read Frog and Toad together, and I can’t help but think of Toad in “The Garden.” He watches his garden minute by minute, waiting for it to grow. And then, after he falls asleep, he wakes up to find his plants have suddenly sprung up overnight.

Forever. And just one year.

When the doctor placed you in my arms one year ago, I immediately realized: this is forever. No matter what happens tomorrow or next year or decades from now, my world has been altered forever. My perspective has been altered forever. My heart has been altered forever.

What didn’t hit me right away is that while my heart is permanently changed, that’s the only thing permanent about this parenting gig. Time, which used to march along fairly consistently, now moves at warp speed. Just one year—that’s all the time we had with you as a baby.

I woke up, and suddenly you are running, arms winging wildly to the sides. You squawk like a pterodactyl at the dinner table, increasing in volume to match the crowd. You no longer bundle up under my winter jacket, with only your fuzzy hat sticking out; you are now toddling around the snow on your own two legs, begging (by way of your adamantly pointing finger) for another sled ride. You no longer fall asleep on our chest; you only have time for drive-by snuggles before dashing off to explore the dishwasher or the ungated stairway or your brother’s toys.

I wouldn’t trade it, of course. It is a delight to watch your personality unfold and to discover, day by day, the person God made you to be.

You are Mr. Personality, charming friends and strangers alike. You doggedly maintain eye contact with anyone, masked or otherwise, until they reciprocate your cheeky grin. From the moment you learned to roll over, you haven’t stopped moving, and once you’ve decided on a destination, there’s no diverting you. You are curious and independent, insisting on feeding yourself, walking by yourself, and even turning the pages of books yourself. Your gap-toothed smile lights up the whole room—and, indeed, our whole lives. I don’t know the ingredients God used to make the unique combination of you, but I have a hunch you’re two parts sunshine and one part steel.

It’s hard to believe that just over a year ago, we hardly knew anything about you. We didn’t know your gender, we didn’t know your name, we didn’t know you’d come into the world with a head full of hair and enough exuberance to rally an entire stadium.

We can’t imagine our family without you, and we can’t wait to see the way you uniquely reflect the character of God to the world.

So happy birthday, my boy. My baby for a year, my son forever.

Love,
Mom (and Dad too)

A Letter to My Second-Born Son

Dear Milo,

Over the past half a year, you have somehow both enlarged me and made my world smaller.

In those first few months, amid a pandemic/social distancing and a winter with record-breaking snowfalls, our world was mostly a cozy four-person cocoon. In the middle of the night, when I fed you by the glow of the Christmas lights we strung on your ceiling, it could have been just you and me in the universe, if not for the snack your dad left for me beside the rocking chair.

Our world was small, yes. But you have also been showing me a grander view of the world.

When I see the man at the stoplight holding a tattered sign, my usually calloused heart is pierced. He was once a baby too, I think. He once had a mother who rocked him to sleep.

When I hear you laugh—without filter or self-consciousness—I can believe in breathtaking joy, the kind that blooms out of the soil of sorrow.

When I see your sense of wonder over the little things—bubbles catching the sunlight just so, a leaf dancing in the breeze—I am reminded to slow down, to bear witness to the miraculous right under my nose.

When I see you and your brother communicating with no need for words, I can embrace a world where reconciliation is possible, where hearts can be glued back together.

You have surprised me, little man . . . and humbled me too. I’ve had a baby before, I remember thinking. Better yet, I’ve had a baby boy. I probably know how to do this. But of course I don’t. Because I’ve never had you before.

You made it clear even before you were born, when the wild rumpus ensued in my belly, that you were your own little person. Ever since, you’ve been on the move, wiggling and kicking and grinning and generally charming your way through life. You refuse to be held on my hip, preferring to be face-out so you won’t miss a single thing.

As a one-toe-in-the-water kind of person myself, I marvel at the way you cannonball straight into the deep end. I admire your moxie, the way you embrace the world and everyone you meet with open arms and a full-body grin.

Just one year—that’s all the time we get you as a baby. I’m trying to drink in the joy of it this time around, knowing it’s like juice concentrate. So much to take in with a single sip, but there’s no way to water it down.

So halfy birthday, little guy. We can’t imagine the world without you; we can’t imagine our family without you. Please keep teaching us—we have a lot more to learn.

Love,
Mom

Idle and Blessed

I played hooky from work yesterday. It was one of those late-spring mornings that beckoned, all blue skies and sweet lilac air. The boys were crabby and craving attention, and I wasn’t making much headway on my deadlines anyway. So we grabbed hats and sunscreen and headed out for a hike on a trail near our home.

Our destination: a modest cave that doesn’t even warrant a name. At its entrance is a faded sign that reads simply, “Cave.” But for a three-year-old, it was magic.

Graham packed his little blue backpack with a flashlight and a snack. “Mama, do you think bears like fruit snacks?”

We explored the cave, barely big enough for a grown-up person to stand up in. To Graham’s simultaneous disappointment and relief, we didn’t find any bears. But along the way, we did see butterflies and bugs, ducks and dandelions, sticks and squirrels.

As we headed home, I thought about Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day”:

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

As I looked in the rearview mirror at the boys nodding off in their car seats, it occurred to me:

Who better than a toddler to help me relearn how to pay attention?
Who better than a person under three feet to show me how to fall down into the grass?
Who better than a baby with leg rolls and a solitary cheek dimple to show me what it looks like to be idle and blessed?

Parenthood has revealed to me that everything does indeed die at last, and too soon—the baby’s propensity to giggle uproariously before the tickle even lands, the look of milk-drunk bliss on his face after he eats, the way he rests his right hand under his head when he sleeps. The toddler’s ability to create a world where Toy Story characters pretend to be lions who also happen to be fighting a fire; the way he tells Milo daily, “I love you so much, little bwother. I’m going to keep you.”

And it hits me: We will never have a summer when they’re three-and-a-half and six-months-old again. We have this one wild and precious summer. What is it we plan to do with it?

If there’s a common refrain to the parenting advice I hear, it’s this: Enjoy it, because it goes fast. I’m always left a little stymied by these words. Because when you have little people in your life, the momentum is always pulsing forward. There’s no pausing, no slowing down, no going back. How do you stop a speeding locomotive whose brakes have been disabled? How do you hold back a cascading waterfall with your bare hands?

I don’t know how to slow time down. I only know how to slow myself down.

And so this summer we will go on hikes in the woods. We will shine our flashlights into caves like the mighty bear hunters we are. We will flagrantly disregard our phones, our deadlines, our dirty toilets, our drive for productivity, our tyrannical to-do lists. We will kneel in the grass. We will collect sticks. We will look for butterflies. We will fail. And we will find the grace to try again.

So if you are looking for me on a summer day, you just may find me strolling through a field, a child in each arm.

Won’t you join me?

***

Work is not always required. . . . There is such a thing as sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.

George MacDonald

Not Enough Time

Every grief, I think, is different. With each death comes unique aches, depending on who you lost or how you lost them, depending on the history you had together or the future you didn’t have together.

But in one sense, every grief is the same. The anthem for anyone who has ever lost someone is, “We didn’t have enough time.” Whether that person was one or one hundred, we are never ready. It’s always too soon.

We lost Baby Mo when he’d been inside me just nine weeks. It was too soon. We didn’t have enough time.

The book of Ecclesiastes says there’s a time for everything, a season for everything.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die.

I’ve always given intellectual assent to the idea that there’s a time to be born and a time to die. But I never thought our baby’s time to die would come before his time to be born.

If we had our way, Mo’s time to die would come after he’d lived a long, good life. It doesn’t seem right that his time to die came before he had a chance to blow bubbles or shoot baskets with his dad or give sloppy kisses to his mama.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about God’s timing, it’s that he has his own clock, his own calendar. Sometimes he’s slower than I’d like, and I’m stuck in the agony of waiting.

And sometimes the hourglass is up before I’ve even fully embraced the season.

A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance . . .

And so even though this isn’t what we would have chosen, now is a time to weep. It’s time to weep on a Wednesday afternoon, when the delivery guy grins and says, “Congratulations!” not knowing the flowers are here to mark Mo’s too-short life. It’s time to mourn when the baby books I’d put on hold arrive at the library, only to be returned, unopened. It’s time to grieve when the doctor’s office calls, reminding of my the prenatal appointment I forgot to cancel.

But now is also a time to laugh. It’s time to laugh when Daniel sings silly songs at the dinner table. It’s time to laugh when Graham dashes out of the bathroom, stark naked, before bath time. It’s time to dance with my boys in the kitchen, even though I have no rhythm and I’m supposed to be making dinner.

So maybe the truth about seasons is that it’s not one or the other—living or dying, weeping or laughing, mourning or dancing. Maybe life is an inextricable jumble of both.

And although we don’t get to choose whether it’s a time to weep or a time to laugh, maybe we do get to choose to embrace them both at once.

***

What I want to tell you is that these times are connected. Mourning and dancing are part of the same movement of grace. Somehow, in the midst of your tears, a gift of life is given. Somehow, in the midst of your mourning, the first steps of the dance take place. The cries that well up from your losses belong to your song of praise. Those who cannot grieve cannot be joyful. 

Henri Nouwen
For Mo. Wishing we had more time.

A Letter to My 25-Year-Old-Self

Yesterday I celebrated my 35th birthday, and in honor of occasion I decided to write a letter to the ten-years-ago me, telling myself things I wish I’d known back then.

***

Dear 25-year-old me,

I have a few things I want to tell you. I know you think I don’t understand, but I do. I’ve been where you are. And I remember.

Thing #1: You know that script you have for your life—that one where you offer God your suggestions about just what will happen in your life, and when? How you’ll meet Prince Charming by the end of the year, get married, move into the white-picket-fenced house, and start a family somewhere around 28? Well, can I tell you something, as gently as I can? Maybe you should crumple up that script and throw it away. As your friends get married one by one (four this year, as I recall), it’s going to be hard. God isn’t going to comply with your script. But you know what? That’s actually a good thing. He has something in mind for you that is way better than anything you could have dreamed up. But if you’re going to embrace the story he has for you, you’re going to have to trust him. And you’re going to have to get your butt out of the director’s chair.

Thing #2: For most of your life you have been swayed by (dare I say obsessed with?) numbers—whether it’s your GPA, the number on the bathroom scale, the balance in your checking account, the age you imagined you’d be when you reached various milestones. You may not be able to hear this now, but believe me when I say that numbers aren’t as important as you think they are. Yes, you should keep giving your best effort, but do so knowing that numbers can never define you. God doesn’t quantify your worth by any set of integers—good or bad. And when it comes to those daunting odds that send tremors of panic through your soul, let me remind you that God has a pretty good track record when it comes to defying statistics.

Thing #3: I know you sometimes feel like there’s something wrong with you, like you’re somehow not good enough, not worthy enough, not lovable enough, and maybe you need to change who you are so you’ll find the love and acceptance you’re longing for. Don’t buy it. God made you the way you are, quirky parts and all. Someday a man will see you for who you are and love you that way. Not just in spite of your quirks, but because of them.

Thing #4: You’ve always been a seasonal girl, captivated by the crunch of leaves underfoot in the fall, the first snowflake on the tip of your tongue, the whiff of a fresh spring rain, the lazy warmth of a summer evening. What you need to know is that this time you’re going through, it’s a season too. I know you feel like you’re stuck on a treadmill while everyone around you is moving forward, but God is at work, even when it seems like he’s stubbornly silent. The parts of this season that seem endless, threatening to trudge on without end—they will cease. And believe it or not, there are parts of this season you’ll miss one day. So take the time to savor this season while it’s here instead of wishing it away.

Sincerely,

Your 35-year-old self

P.S. A few final tips:

Don’t take yourself so seriously.

Don’t be afraid of tears.

And by all means, buy the red couch.

***

As I write these things to my former self, I wonder what my 45-year-old self would say to me from a decade down the road—what I should stop worrying about, what I should embrace, what’s worth crying about, what deserves a good laugh.

I suppose there’s only one way to find out. So I’m going to jump into this year with both feet and try to become the person God meant me to be. One day at a time.