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Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

July 31, 2019

In the Season of Raspberries

In my memory, it is forever summer at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. The desert sun is always beating down as we run through the sprinkler. The Columbia River is always cold and clear. The homemade ice cream tastes like spoonsful of heaven. And there are always raspberries in the garden, deep red and begging to be picked.

Every summer when we kids visited my grandparents, we looked forward to picking raspberries with Grandpa. We could have been out playing, but we followed him to the garden, Pied Piper style, even though we knew that meant we’d be put to work.

Green baskets in hand, we’d alternate between filling our baskets and popping the sun-ripened berries into our mouths. As we made our way down the meticulous rows, Grandpa plied us with riddles and puzzles to solve.

Railroad crossing; look out for cars. Can you spell that without any r’s?

Although Grandpa spent nearly his entire career as an analytical chemist, he was truly a teacher at heart. Before being recruited by a nuclear plant at the height of the Cold War, he spent several years as a high school chemistry teacher. But he never stopped teaching. The raspberry patch became his classroom, and we were his students.

When Grandpa finished picking his rows, he’d head over to help with mine. “I got them all,” I would say confidently. He’d just smile, and then, to my utter amazement, fill several baskets’ worth of berries from the bushes I was certain were bare.

***

I got the news that Grandpa’s heart beat for the last time on a hot June day. The raspberries in my own garden—a weak nod to Grandpa’s legacy—were just starting to ripen.

A decade and a half ago, dementia started pulling my grandfather away from us. It began as a slow trickle at first, until eventually the current picked up and swept him away, one memory at a time.

The last time I saw him, he said, “Am I supposed to know you?” When I told him I was his granddaughter, he cocked his head and squinted at me. “No, that’s not it,” he said, as if trying to solve a riddle. “But I do think I know you.”

He gave me a hug anyway.

How do you summarize a life of 90-plus years? If I had to pin Grandpa down to a single attribute, I suppose I would say he was a study in faithfulness. He was married to the same woman for 66 years. He was a member of the same church for 61 years. He worked at the same company for 37 years. He tended the same raspberry patch for four decades. And under his meticulous care, all manner of things flourished.

In the days before his death, the thin space between heaven and earth became increasingly gauzy. Near the end, he could hardly breathe, but when my mom and her sisters said the Lord’s Prayer over him, he opened his eyes and mouthed the words right along with them.

On earth as it is in heaven . . .

Now Grandpa’s mind has been returned to him. He has been reunited with his memories. And I like to think he’s sharing his riddles with a whole new audience beyond the pearly gates.

As I teach my son to fill up his own basket of raspberries, I’m struck by the rich bounty we’ve been given. The raspberry harvest is sweet. But not as sweet as the harvest from a life faithfully lived.

***

What’s lost is nothing to what’s found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.

Frederick Buechner

Did you figure out the answer to the riddle? It’s that.

8 Comments Filed Under: Family Tagged With: death, dementia, Frederick Buechner, grandfather, grandparent, heaven, riddles
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December 16, 2016

Waiting with Joy

One year ago, exactly, I was waiting for a phone call. I was ready, bursting with anticipation, my phone glued to my hip all day and all through the night. My sister was expecting her second baby, and the plan was for Mom and me to jump in the car as soon as we got the call. We’d make the two-and-a-half hour drive so we could watch big sister Addie while her mom and dad were in the hospital.

It was an Advent like no other, waiting for this baby son to come into the world.

Oh come, Oh come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear

The call came at 2:00 a.m. in the dark quiet of a snowy morning. I leaped out of bed before the second ring. “It’s time,” my sister said. “We’re headed to the hospital.”

After all the waiting, all the expectation, all the hope, it was time. This long-awaited baby was coming.

Rejoice, Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, Oh Israel!

The arrival came with pain, to be sure. But when Baby Grant came into the world, there was indeed much rejoicing.

This Advent I found myself waiting again. But this time, instead of waiting for a birth, I was waiting for a death.

Once again I kept the phone beside me night and day, waking and sleeping. But this time my heart weighed three hundred pounds each time the phone rang.

My grandfather had lived a good life. He was a man of the greatest generation—a hard worker and a man of quiet but deep faith. He never would have abided my saying so, but he was a hero: first as a B-17 pilot over Europe during World War II and then as the faithful father to twelve children. He had been married to my grandma for almost 71 years—a lifetime in itself. His was quite a legacy: a legacy of faithfulness and wit and wisdom and love and dozens upon dozens of people who share his name.

And now he was ready to go home. I kissed his cheek last Sunday, aware that it would likely be the last time on this side of heaven.

I knew it was time—we all did. And yet somehow 94 still seemed too young. God has planted eternity in our hearts, which means that death always comes too soon. We are made for life, not death.

Oh come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer
Thy people with Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight

The call came one evening after dinner, and somehow I missed it. I must have been in the basement, throwing a load in the wash. My dad’s voice was on the message: “I have good news and bad news,” he said. “It’s bad news for us, because we’ll miss him. But it’s all good news for him.”

At Advent we celebrate the gift of Emmanuel. God with us, to comfort those who mourn in lonely exile. God with us, to disperse the gloomy clouds of night. God with us, to put death’s dark shadows to flight.

As we inhabit this weary world, we grieve and we wait and we ache. But we also rejoice, because death isn’t the end of the story. The pangs of death make way for new life—the kind of life that never ends.

Until then, we wait. And we wait with joy.

God with us. Us with God. Emmanuel.

Rejoice, Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, Oh Israel!

6 Comments Filed Under: Family Tagged With: Advent, birth, Christmas, death, Emmanuel, grandfather, joy, legacy, waiting, World War II
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September 17, 2013

Raspberry Harvest

Among the mental snapshots that defined summer for me as a child were those 100-degree days at my grandparents’ house. We’d spend all day outside—playing shuffleboard, running through the sprinkler, and going boating on the river.

But some of my most cherished memories were the afternoons in my grandfather’s raspberry patch. I loved the sweet tang of Grandpa’s raspberries in all forms—in homemade raspberry jam, in a bowl with cream, in Grandma’s array of luscious pastries and desserts. But my favorite way to eat the raspberries was straight off the vine, under the hot desert sun.

stephanie_rische_blog_grandpa_harvest***

 My grandpa’s dementia has been creeping in over the past decade or so, and his once immaculate garden has now almost entirely surrendered to weeds and grass. There are no more army-straight rows of tomatoes or cucumbers, and his herb patch is no more than a memory. But somehow his raspberry bushes are still there—still producing fruit, still offering their ripe summer gifts.

I went to visit my grandparents over the summer, and on one 100-degree afternoon, with the desert sun smiling down on neck just the way I remembered from my childhood, I went out to the raspberry bushes with Grandpa to fill our little green baskets.

Grandpa struggles with basic tasks now, and on the way from the garage to the raspberry patch, he turned to me more than once to ask, “Now what are we supposed to be doing?”

But the moment we got to the raspberry bushes, his motor memory kicked in, and he started picking like the efficient gardener I remember. I’d finish a raspberry bush, feeling confident I’d gotten all the ripe ones, and Grandpa would come along behind me, quietly filling his basket with all the hidden berries I’d missed.

stephanie_rische_blog_grandpa_raspberries***

We celebrated my grandparents’ 60th anniversary while I was there, and one night at dinner, as I looked around the huge table filled with their family—all the people who wouldn’t have been possible without them—I marveled at the harvest they are reaping after more than half a century together.

I looked at Grandpa’s daughter and her two children who all share his love of singing and who grace others with that gift as well.

I looked at my cousin with the mechanically wired mind, the curiosity to take things apart and put them together again—just like Grandpa.

I looked at my brother—the leader with the servant-heart—and saw my grandpa reflected in another generation.

I looked at my sister and my cousin—the ones with the big hearts and much love for people—and felt sure Grandpa must be proud.

I looked at his daughters who have sacrificed much and loved their families well, just as their father before them has done.

And as we toasted Grandma and Grandpa with generous slices of chocolate cake, it struck me that although Grandpa isn’t able to do much sowing right now, he’s reaping a harvest of all he’s planted over these 80-plus years. All those labors of love, all the watering and tending and patience and gentle pruning—it’s paying off now in the legacy he leaves to his children, his grandchildren, and his great-grandchildren.

So thank you, Grandpa. Thank you for all your years of faithfulness. Because of you, future generations will keep reaping what you planted. I’m so grateful to be one of the shoots tended in that soil.

stephanie_rische_legacy_of_faith

Let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. —Galatians 6:9

9 Comments Filed Under: Family Tagged With: Alzheimer's, dementia, Faith, Family, Galatians, gardening, God, grandfather, harvest
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