Growing
Somewhere in Idaho
It occurs to me, on this highway cutting through the farming country of Idaho, that these moments won’t last.
This car, full of 3 kids, snacks, chargers and phones, suitcases, coolers, guitars, shoes, pillows and blankets, a husband that calls himself mine…
It is not permanent. In just a few short years, these 3 girls will be grown and out in the great wide world of their own making. I don’t know what kind of world it will be. The future is very uncertain. But I know I will be here for them, as much as that is in my control. I will love them. I am the luckiest person in the world to get to be a witness to their lives.
Impermanence. It’s one of the only things that is certain.
My heart overflows with gratitude—and fear.
These 5 people in this car, (myself included), are my whole world. My life and existence is what it is because we get to be together.
Every day, they grow closer to independence. To not needing me as much, if at all. I grow closer to a home that is mostly quiet. To car trips and rides listening to my own music and books, instead of the sound of Freaky Friday over the loudspeaker. The bickering of the pre-pubescent teens while they fight over who gets to pick the next song. As much as those things can grate on me, I know I will loathe the silence. I do not look forward to it. I like the chaos of having them home. Here, with me.
I want them to have their own big and gargantuan lives and loves. And I want to keep them mine, forever. Like this. With their laundry clogging up my hallway and their backpacks spilling out over my front room. I want to keep their hair ties on my bathroom sink. Their sleepy-eyed faces emerging every morning to eat breakfast at our hand-me-down kitchen table. The one I said yes to about 14 years ago when friends offered it to us, thinking it would limp us by until we could afford a “real” one of our own. Turns out, the memories of their childhoods will have this rickety old table… one I never would have chosen from a store.
The actual table in my house
Life is funny, so they say. But today, I don’t feel like laughing. I feel like gathering my girls tight to my chest like cards in a poker game. Not letting the world have them to harden and tease. I want to protect them from power that wants to control them. I want to sweep them under my wing like a hen does to her chicks.
I feel like smiling as the tears roll down my cheeks. Tears of love and tender motherhood. Tears of knowing that no one else will ever know and love them exactly like I get to.
Pictures by Heidi Ruckman Photography in Grand Junction, CO
I’m growing too. Growing into the person I will be tomorrow, next week, year and decade. I am growing into a person who accepts the uncertainty of living.
Keeping myself open to new possibilities. New experiences of all kinds: tender and brutal.
As I meet this new person of my own becoming, I will keep my back strong and my front soft. I will keep my heart wild as I love with abandon.
“I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.”
Emily Dickinson.
Stefanie Griffith
Somewhere in Idaho
2025