Laurel Elisabeth Stevens

         I wrote this piece recently for a live story-telling show about motherhood called  Listen to Your Mother.  It was a wonderful  opportunity  to prepare this story and then read it to a live audience in San Antonio. I share it with grief and hope.  LS It was ten years ago this March—ten years ago that the doorbell rang sometime after seven in the evening on that Saturday night.  I was already upstairs getting ready for bed, feeling bulky and cumbersome at nearly 41 weeks of pregnancy.  Our three-year old daughter was sound asleep, and I resented this unexpected intrusion into a quiet evening with my husband John. Through the beveled glass of the front door I saw my parents and younger brother.  Why would they just drop in unannounced when they lived an hour away? I opened the door with a smile, trying to cover the curiosity and irritation I felt.  But when I saw their faces, my stomach churned. “W...

Yesterday at the Easter service I held my big six year-old boy in my arms during the first hymn.  Henry still likes to be held during hymns--it is a precious ritual--but he’s getting heavy, so I usually tell him Daddy will hold him.  But March is a month of remembering, and I could not help but remember Easter six years ago when I held my son Henry--a tiny red-faced bundle, opening his mouth and rooting for his mommy every few hours.   He was one-week baptized and my body still reminded me of his recent delivery.  And my heart was still newly-aching from my brother’s death. Resurrection Sunday either meant more to me than it ever had before, or it meant absolutely nothing.   That Easter and every Easter since (even in Germany, in German) we’ve sung the new hymn In Christ Alone by Getty and Townsend. I think it was written for me, truly.  In March of 2007, the space of three days held my brother’s final breath and my son’s first ...