Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

Three and Sixty Augusts Ago

3rd anniversary

Our third anniversary, in the park we went to on our first date

Three Augusts ago, Daniel and I stood under a tulle-covered arch, surrounded by a small cluster of family and friends (and one stray cat that made an appearance halfway through), and we said some big vows. With eyes locked on each other and hearts lodged in our throats, we strung words together one by one until they became big promises.

Looking back, I see now that we were like kids dressed in grown-up clothes, arms dangling in too-long sleeves and feet tripping over clown-like shoes. But that’s the only way to commit to something as big as “till death do us part,” I think. You put on the big promises and pray with everything in you that one day you’ll grow into them.

Just a day after our anniversary, Daniel’s grandparents celebrated sixty-one years of marriage. In six decades, they have raised a handful of children, doted on a dozen-plus grandchildren, and rejoiced over the births of several great-grandchildren.

But then, about ten years ago, Gramma Lo started forgetting things. It wasn’t long before the diagnosis came: Alzheimer’s. The disease that’s a thief, only it doesn’t take everything at once. It steals slowly—one memory, one mannerism, one life skill at a time.

In sickness and in health.

The day before Daniel and I got married, Papa Jack pulled out a small velvet bag. “I wish Gramma Lo could be here this weekend,” he said. “But I know she would have wanted to you to wear this.” He pulled out a simple, elegant string of pearls. “She wore this necklace at our wedding.”

For better or for worse.

PJ and Gramma Lo

Papa Jack and Gramma Lo at an Alzheimer’s walk

On more than one occasion Daniel and I have tried to tell Papa Jack how much we admire him for the way he loves Gramma Lo during this season . . . the way he trims her nails, reads children’s books to her, and patiently endures her insistence that he is not her husband. But he brushes off our compliments and smiles as if to say, “This is not heroic. This is just what love looks like.”

Till death do us part.

As I watch Papa Jack and Gramma Lo, I’m starting to think that maybe love isn’t so much the grand gestures, the significant milestones, the scenes captured in photos. Maybe love is those small moments of choosing to love in the healthy times and the sick times, in the good times and the worse times. And maybe those little moments get strung together one by one, like pearls on a string—beautiful, shimmering, timeless. Something that can be passed on to the next generation, and the one after that.

Daniel and I have a long way to go before we grasp the kind of love we see in Papa Jack and Gramma Lo’s marriage. But by the grace of God and the examples set before us, we will wear these big vows until we grow into them.

And so we say it this year, just as we did three Augusts ago:

We do.

For all that is now and all that is to come, we do.

Sojourners Here

A few weeks ago on a brilliant Sunday afternoon, my grandparents’ friends, a couple in their 80s, took their own lives. I didn’t know them personally, but I am grieving anyway. I’m grieving on behalf of their children, on behalf of their friends, on behalf of all those they left behind.

***

You were almost there, almost at the finish line. I know you wanted to end in a sprint, with triumph and vigor, arms lifted high. But somewhere along the way you forgot that finishing well sometimes just means finishing. Even if you have to limp across the line.

I wish you could have seen the crowd in the stands . . . all the people who were cheering you on, urging you forward. All the people who loved you.

I suppose you knew what King David knew—that we are but sojourners here on earth.

We are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding. (1 Chronicles 29:15)

Life in these shadowlands is hard, it’s true. The losses take our breath away, the pain doubles us over, and it can be hard to see the finish line through the tears.

But with these encroaching shadows, we needed you all the more. We needed your light. We needed the conversations over Sunday brunch, the phone calls to check in, the recipes to swap. You reflected God’s light in a way no one else can, and now your unique brilliance has been snuffed out.

If you were still here, I would hug you first and then chastise you. Instead, I’m left with the secondary grief of mourning you on behalf of those I love.

“People needed you,” I would have said. “My grandparents needed you.”

You were afraid to be a burden, but this burden you leave behind is so much heavier.

All I have is words, and they come too late for you to hear. And so I write in the hope that someone else will read these words and it will not be too late for them.

I want you to know that you are irreplaceable.
That the world needs your light.
That you can make it to the finish line.

So please. Please, fellow sojourner. Do not end your sojourn too soon.

A True Story of Love and War and 67 Years

The year was 1946. The Nuremburg war trials had begun. Wartime price controls were being lifted in the United States. And America’s boys were slowly trickling back from the war…including the tall, dark-haired Lieutenant Voiland, having defied the odds and survived countless bombing missions on the European front.

His fiancée, Cay, had been waiting and praying anxiously, day by day, month by month, year by year, longing for her sweetheart to come home. She’d been planning their wedding while he was gone—the ultimate act of hope in the midst of a war in which half a million men who left never returned. With her trademark spunk, she refused to let the scarcity of silk prevent her from having a wedding dress, so she arranged to have a dress made from the unlikeliest of sources (I wrote about the remarkable story here).

For most of my life, I assumed Grandma and Grandpa’s February wedding date had been scheduled around Valentine’s Day. Whenever we gathered to celebrate as an extended family, we marked the occasion with red decorations and a heart-shaped cake, and I never heard anything to indicate otherwise.

It was only recently that I discovered their wedding date was determined not by Valentine’s Day but by Ash Wednesday.

“Ash Wednesday?” I asked Grandma. The dots weren’t connecting for me.

“Things were stricter back then,” Grandma said. “You couldn’t get married during Lent.”

g and g weddingOf course—Lent. The church took seriously this 40-day period of sacrifice, fasting, and repentance, and it was not the time for weddings and feasts.

Grandma winked at me. “I’d been waiting long enough,” she said. “I wasn’t about to wait until after Easter!”

And so, on a Tuesday morning, just a day before Ash Wednesday, they squeezed in a simple ceremony at the campus chapel. I’ve always been enchanted by the lone black-and-white photograph of Grandma and Grandpa on their wedding day: Grandma looking beautiful and big eyed in that one-of-a-kind gown, and Grandpa, serious and handsome as ever in his classic suit.

***

This year Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday fell one day apart from each other, just a week before my grandparents’ 67th anniversary, and I was struck by the tender intersection of these sacred occasions: Valentine’s Day. A much-anticipated wedding. Ash Wednesday. Lent. An anniversary marking almost seven decades of marriage. And it got me to wondering: maybe Ash Wednesday is the perfect backdrop for a wedding after all. Valentine’s Day offers fine sentiments, of course—an appropriate reminder for us to express our love each year. But real love may be more aptly captured by a day marked by sacrifice and surrender and the choice to lay down one’s life.

Grandma and Grandpa know this well. The war showed them the cost of love from the very beginning: the agonizing separation—both by an ocean and by endless days, when the only threads connecting them were their love and a string of handwritten letters. And just because the war ended, that didn’t mean the sacrifices did. With the ratio of one income to 12 children, they sometimes had more month than they had money.

And now, as my grandparents are in their golden years, they are dealing with the sacrifices of caring for each other’s needs as their bodies and minds aren’t quite what they used to be.G&G

But if you asked them about the cost of love, they’d likely look at you with a bewildered shrug. That’s just what love does. It’s the very nature of love to give, to sacrifice, to lay down one’s life for one’s beloved.

And that is, after all, what we celebrate during Lent. This season marks the greatest romance of all time: the Savior who sacrificed everything to show us his love. The one who fought courageous battles on our behalf. The one who laid down his life for the ones he loves.

Love and Lent. Perhaps they’re more connected than I realized. 

So happy 67th anniversary, Grandma and Grandpa.

And happy VaLENTine’s season, everyone.

***

If you’d like to read more about my grandma and grandpa’s love story, including how Grandma’s dress was passed down to two more generations, check out my aunt Annie’s story here.

The Red Danger Zone

When my dad and his 11 siblings were growing up, they had very specific seating assignments around their big table. Grandpa had custom-built a bench on one side of the table, so long it took up almost the entire wall. The three little girls were grouped together with the more responsible older siblings seated strategically around them, and one particularly energetic brother was Grandma’s “special project.” But the dreaded spot was always the Red Danger Zone—the seats that fell in arm’s length of Grandpa. Because rest assured, if you were misbehaving during dinner, you did not want to be within swatting distance.

Earlier this month we celebrated Grandpa and Grandma’s 90th birthday party. It would have been a noteworthy celebration under any circumstances, marking almost a century of life and love for two people adored by so many. But we had even more reason to celebrate since Grandpa had just gotten out of the hospital. He proudly walked into the room next to Grandma aided only by his walker (under no circumstances would he allow himself to be seen in a wheelchair, since those are for “old people”). I’m pretty sure the grin remained on his face until long after he fell asleep that night.

Grandma and Grandpa’s friends streamed into the big party room at their assisted-living facility for three hours…some 200 friends and neighbors, not counting all of us kids and grandkids. I didn’t need convincing about what wonderful people Grandma and Grandpa are, but it warmed me to my toes to have scores of gray-haired ladies and a handful of older gentlemen tell me how much they loved playing bridge and going to book group with Grandma and Grandpa, how they have seen God’s love shining through Grandma and Grandpa’s lives.

And as I watched each friend, each son and daughter, each grandchild flock to Grandpa and Grandma’s table to receive hugs and smiles, not to mention lipsticky kisses from Grandma, a thought washed over me: now everyone wants to be in the Red Danger Zone.

In my Bible reading, I just arrived at Paul’s letter to the Galatians. As I read, I’m struck by the thread of freedom that weaves through the book. Paul takes issue with the religious contingent that has been sucked in by legalism and is looking to rule-following for salvation. He paints an alternate vision for them—an analogy of a loving father with his children. We are no longer slaves, Paul contends, but children. We don’t have to live in fear, obsessed with the letter of the law; instead, we can live in relationship with God, our Father.

We were like children; we were slaves to the basic spiritual principles of this world. But when the right time came, God sent his Son…so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.

—Galatians 4:3-7

Under grace, we no longer have to fear the Red Danger Zone of God’s wrath. Instead, we can call him our Abba, our Daddy. And he invites us to come close, ready to offer us his love and his warm embrace. After all, we are his children.

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.gpa bday 1