Our Story of Hope- Steubing Family (Rylan)
Out of our four children, Rylan was the only one that I knew with 100% certainty the night she was conceived. Probably way too much information to begin a story with, but it sets the tone for her uniqueness. My heart just knew that a beautiful baby had been made and somehow I knew that the beautiful baby was a she.
Before Rylan
After a few tumultuous early years, James and I foolishly and rashly decided we couldn’t be married anymore. We were just too “different”(insert eye roll!). I look back on those days now and alternate between feelings of shame at our choices and a peace and certainty that God was still working and the story of our lives were being written.
After a year of separation and much growing up and reconstruction, we remarried on a cold December day. Our little five year old Jordan standing up with his young parents, watching us recommit to being a family again. The next December he would welcome his baby sister.
She’s Here
On the night of December 3, 1997 an incredibly beautiful baby was born. Her birth was the easiest of the four babies and she was a true cherub.
For some reason, (I actually think there’s no such thing as “some reason” as it’s now clear to me that God gave me some distinct and lasting imprints of her life that I now treasure deeply) but the first night after she was born and I was alone in the hospital room with her I had a moment that I have never forgotten. The previous night when I went into labor, there was a blizzard. As in blowing snow, you can’t go over 25 mph and I was convinced she would be a floorboard baby! But if you have ever experienced a snow storm, the first night after the storm is magical. The sky is completely clear and the moon reflects with an incredible brightness of the white landscape. It’s wonderful!
So that night, as I sat on my hospital bed with this little angel laying in front of me, a moonbeam shining through the window illuminated her like an angel. In that moment, this overwhelming, indescribable love came over me. In that moment, we bonded. I can think of it today, almost 21 years later, with perfect recall.
Did I bond with my other children? Absolutely! But for “some reason” Rylan’s was burned into my memories unlike the others. God knew. He knew I would need those memories to survive the day he took her from me.
She grew up healthy and beautiful and a complete joy to our family and friends. She was adorable and to add a cherry to her cuteness, she was irresistibly sweet.
Two more baby sisters would be added to our family over the next 15 years. Morgan came three and a half years after Rylan and then our little “surprise package” Maren, arrived when Rylan was almost 15 and Morgan was 11.
I can say with certainty that the day Maren was born was the best day of Rylan’s life. Sheer joy was on her face in that delivery room! She was the most excited person in our family that a new baby was coming (James and I were still thawing from our shock of being parents again at 41 and 43!). For Maren, I often think the loss of Rylan will be the most significant because she never got to fully know how much she was loved by her big sister. To be loved the way Rylan loved Maren is truly the cure for humanity. I will spend my days telling her how much her sister loved her.
She had her first seizure at 13. It was nocturnal, no one saw her have it and thus would begin the mystery of her epilepsy. At first we were told it was likely brought on by adolescence and there was a good chance it would leave her by the time she reached her twenties. We were hopeful! It was mild at first and she only had five or six seizures the first year. When the meds began to fail, one after the other, our first tastes of fear began to settle on us. I began to wake up every morning with my first thoughts being “did she have a seizure last night?” It would become an all consuming thought over the course of the next five years.
Ecuador
In early 2013 we began to feel an almost magnetic pull to move outside the U.S. For over a year we diligently prayed and talk through what such a life changing decision like that would like. I still struggle even today to adequately explain the process of how and why we ended up in Ecuador. It was so incredible, hard, scary, daunting, exhilarating and overwhelming. While all of our children were on board and excited to go, none as much as Rylan. She rarely expressed second thoughts like the rest of us. She KNEW it was the path we were to take. She jumped in immediately to our new culture. She studied her Spanish with such diligence! She was by her nature shy but very much a people person. She longed to communicate and get to know our new neighbors.
After enrolling the girls in private school, they began to speak and understand Spanish at a rapid pace! They were such brave girls!! I still beam with pride when I think of how they stepped into the adventure with such courage.
The Change
In the beginning of her senior year, she came to me and said “Mom, I am so torn about school. I’m struggling academically and maybe I should homeschool and finish?” For “some reason” she approached me with the idea of going to Youth With A Mission (YWAM, pronounced *why wham*) and doing a Discipleship Training School. A program held all over the world in virtually every country. She was going to finish home school and start YWAM the following fall. She would attend Midwifery school after her DTS in Kona, Hawaii at University of the Nations. Her acceptance into the program there was one her great joys. She loved babies and women and birth with a passion I’ve rarely seen.
For “some reason” I knew it was the right thing for her but that she shouldn’t wait to go, I told her to to apply right away to YWAM. I remember the night I told James I was questioning my parenting in advising my child to stop her senior year of school to leave and go on a six month adventure! But I knew she was to go.
We began to correspond with a wonderful American missionary family in Cusco, Peru running the YWAM base camp there. Jordan and Joy Allen and their three children would become a second family to Rylan.
Letting Her Go
I began to immediately question my decision to let her go with the epilepsy getting increasingly worse. We agreed that for safety reasons she would stay on a med that had horrible side effects but reduced the seizures (but not stop them entirely) while she was gone.
In February of 2017 we said our tearful goodbyes in the airport and James flew with her to Peru. My baby girl. I can still feel her hug goodbye. I couldn’t wait for her excited phone calls and she couldn’t wait to tell us everything she was doing!
My amazing little girl turned young woman, learned and grew and studied. She went to the jungles of Colombia, Peru and Brazil. She swam in the Amazon, preached a sermon with a translator, played with sloths and indigenous tribes. She grew in her faith, matured in ways I don’t think most of us ever do. She lived a life most never dare to live.
Coming Home
I counted the days until her July 2016 return to Ecuador. I was overjoyed to see her. While God had graciously protected her while she was gone, and she had only had two seizures in the months away (a miracle!) I was concerned. The medication side effects were awful and had taken their toll. We set up another intensive visit with the neurologist and the endless tests as soon as she returned. He suggested yet another new med to try. Five days on the new medication she came to me and said words I will never forget. She in essence said she didn’t want to disobey me (and she never had) but she was done with the meds. As in she was not taking meds anymore. Ever. At this point we had done every diet, oil, alternative treatment known to help epilepsy and no success. She said at 18 years old she felt she had the right to choose and she was tired. Tired of the side effects and the life it took from her. What could I say? I didn’t push. I just said ok and then began to beg God for a cure, healing, new medication..something!! I was beginning to get scared.
A few weeks before she was to leave for Hawaii to start university, I woke up in the middle of the night with the absolute certainty that she couldn’t go. I woke up James and tearfully told him what I was feeling. He agreed and we prayed right then that if God was showing us she wasn’t to leave that Rylan would be in agreement. I was distraught to tell her we didn’t want her to go. It was her dream!! She was so excited! But the next morning she tearfully agreed. My heart broke for her! We all agreed it was just a delay until we got her health under control. But it was not to be.
Going Home
On February 22, 2017 my precious moonbeam baby returned to her heavenly home. I was the one to find her. It was a surreal moment. I had been in the hospital for a gallbladder removal, a surgery I had been putting off for over a year. James came to pick me up and take me home after taking Morgan and Maren to school. He left Rylan at home, she told him she hadn’t slept well and was laying on the couch when he left.
My momma’s heart knew she had left me before I even found her. I was so certain of it I jumped out of the car (with a sore abdomen and stitches) and ran screaming her name into my house. The deafening silence that answered me confirmed my biggest and longest held fear. One of my babies had left me.
The aftermath of child loss is like a war zone. People walk around disoriented and shell shocked. Picking up what remains with a feeling of hopelessness.
I picked her up and rocked her like a baby and begged God to send her back. I asked to switch places with her. It’s an anguish there are just not words in the universe that describe it.
We had to fly our baby back home to Texas in a coffin. The details of those days following her death in a foreign country and the miraculous ways God provided are stories in and of themselves. From our amazing neighbors and friends who basically took over and called all the proper authorities and drove a grieving James to a morgue. To our missionary friends (who had also lost a daughter just two years prior) who came immediately and virtually never left our side and brought food and practical care as well as helping us just survive.
The Aftermath
One day in my early thirties with three young children, I had a conversation/deal making talk with God. I said precisely this:
“Please do not ever take one of my children from me. I will carry any cross you ask me to but please not that one”
But He did. I didn’t think I could survive it. My own childhood pains and struggles had created in me a desire to be the best mother I could. I loved them more than my own life. Maybe more than I loved God. I did not want a life without one of them. It just seemed too much.
It would take an entire book, one I just very well may write, to tell of the ways God prepared me to carry the one cross I asked Him not to make me carry. He answered my prayer not by sparing my child but carrying me and carrying the cross with me. We believe we are entitled to a long life with our children. With our spouse. With our parent. We are not. Each day is a gift, it is not promised.
There is life after death. On this earth for those who remain and for those who put their hope in a loving God and pass from this life into the next. Yes He is loving. Even when then the unthinkable happens. When you have to take up the one cross you didn’t think you could ever carry. He carries us.
Rylan Richelle Steubing
1997-2017
My daughter and precious friend. I can’t wait till we meet again.
John 14:2
