Guest Blogger Annie Riess - My Baby Goes to School

Hello Friends,

I'm excited to share that Annie Riess will be guest blogging this week while I'm half-crazed getting the boys' homeschool year underway.

I met Annie in Rye, NY, when she and I shared the blessing of invitations to the 2008 Guideposts Writers Workshop. Before the workshop, I was moved by a story Annie had written. When I met her in person, I was even more moved by Annie's wisdom and heart for the Lord.

I still am.

Thanks, Annie, for sharing with us this week.

Have a blessed Labor Day...

With Love,
Shawnelle


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                                                           My Baby Goes to School
                                                                    
                                                                     
                                                         

         “Why do I have to go all alone?  We always go everywhere together!”   Our first-born son cried, as we gathered in front of our farm home to see Ryan off to Kindergarten.

He looked so small and helpless as he stood there silhouetted by the rising sun.  He did not want to go alone.  He was heartbroken and just stood there kicking gravel with his foot and sobbing.    

  Yesterday I had taken him in for his first day, and had helped him find the correct bus, which he came home on.  Today was to just be routine.  But routine, it was not.  Silently, I wished that my mother-in-law wasn’t there with us.  She must be thinking we were a little too sentimental.  After all she had lived to see six children off to school, and then off on their own.   

            Ryan took another step down our driveway.  “I don’t want to go to school.  I want to stay home,” he lamented.   “I want to ride my bike and play in the sand pile, like I always do,” With each request and the tears that went with it, it was becoming more and more difficult to stand there waving goodbye pretending we didn’t notice or care that he was in such distress.  He took a few more steps then turned and wailed “Dad, you need me to help you, can’t I stay home?” 

            With only a brief pause, my husband Ken bravely called back: “No …not today.” 

This was so much more difficult than we had anticipated.

            At last, Ryan noticed the bus coming down the road and thankfully he turned and ran down the driveway toward it and disappeared up the steps.  I heaved a sigh of relief, but was careful to hide my tears as I turned back toward the house.  Abruptly, I was stopped in my tracks by a moaning howl that quickly built into the most guttural wail I had ever heard.  It was like the shattering of a wounded soul and it came from Grandma! 

“I should have known she would take it hard.”  I admonished myself, as we embraced and the anguished wails became almost deafening.  “Grandma has practically lived with us ever since Ryan was born; she too grieves for him and his days at home with her.”  In that moment I realized that she found this just as difficult as I.  How could I have wished she were not here?

            On that beautiful fall day I learned a lot more, than how to let my baby go.  I learned that things are not always what they seem, and I must never assume I know what other people’s thoughts and feeling are. 
 I just might be proven wrong.  

Annie Riess farms with her husband Ken, in Saskatchewan, Canada, where she teaches piano lessons and writes  freelance.She loves the Lord and has experienced many miraculous answers to prayer.
Annie also enjoys cooking, baking, and making cards, but most of all she savors time spent with her friends and family.