Held

Fall 2018

Stephanie and I were pregnant with twins at the same time. I told some of our pastor friends at a happy hour once I was showing. I noticed that Stephanie was nursing a faux-mixed drink, but didn’t say anything. She called me from the parking lot to tell me her news still early and hidden. I turned my car around and met her with a squeal and a hug. 

She was admitted to the hospital a few weeks before me and placed on bedrest. We would text back and forth about how hard it was to slow down, to do less, to listen to our bodies and our babies. She didn't think she was very good at bedrest, but I learned a lot from watching her.

She held those babies for a few more weeks because she listened to her body. She paid attention to how it felt. It was as though she was saying, "Not yet. Stay here, together with me. Let me hold you for a little longer. You're not quite ready for the big wide world."

The morning I was induced, I asked Stephanie to get wheelchair privileges so we could hang out in my room. It took several hours for my contractions to gain strength, so we talked and laughed about ministry and pregnancy and bodies until, finally, she and Matt convinced me it was time for an epidural.

The next day I waddled up to her room and wheeled her to the Special Care Nursery to meet my girls. Two babies on the outside, two babies on the inside. We celebrated the already and the not yet.

One of my little ones stayed a full week in the nursery, so I was back to visit every day. I checked in on Stephanie by phone or in person. This week felt like many weeks since we were both waiting and listening, to our bodies and our babies' bodies.

My arms were full of babies and bags and pumps and monitors when we left the Special Care Nursery for the last time, turning to see Paul wheeling Stephanie down the hall. She had just given birth to her twins an hour earlier and was on her way to the NICU to hold them in her arms. I burst into tears because our hormones, pain, beauty and strength were dovetailing yet again. We embraced and celebrated life for a moment before going our separate ways. Not that they were ever really separate. Not that they are now, either.

Photo Credit: Rebecca Voelkel

This is one view from Stephanie's funeral on Saturday. Central Lutheran Church was filled with her family, friends, parishioners, neighbors, colleagues, and mentors. We were God's body and God's babies. And God was feeling our grief and listening to us saying, "Not yet. Stay here, together with me. Let me hold you for a little longer. You're not quite ready for the big wide world."

When it was time for Holy Communion, 27 of Stephanie's female colleagues processed in carrying the bread and wine. We were like the women at the tomb, surrounding the chancel with our bodies and Christ's body. Stephanie's body was also there, her casket robed in white at the center, her light reflected in the whole crowd gathered to give thanks for her life. We stood as rebels in the face of death, full of feelings and faith, most certainly held while we handed over the sacrament again and again and again. We celebrated the already and the not yet and it took me all the way back to the Special Care Nursery.

The church bells rang out, turning our mourning cries into one amorphous murmur as the crowd followed her family onto the plaza. We hesitated because it was hot and humid in the big wide world and we weren't quite finished being held. 

We never really are.