Her middle name is Miriam

I’ve heard time and again that kids grow up faster than parents realize. My work takes me among older people often so as I seek their wisdom about life I hear time and again to enjoy parenting because it goes so quick. I had no idea how quickly Charis Miriam has grown.

Misha has returned to part time work so today I’m home alone with the girls. While both are asleep, I continued planning a lesson for the confirmation kids about Moses and that story of the exodus. I cued the opening music scene from the film Prince of Egypt. Before I could start watching, Charis woke from her nap and wiping sleep from her eyes, came down the stairs and crawled into my lap. I know she misses Misha – whenever her baby sister Rebekah starts to cry, Charis says it’s because “she misses Mommy” – so it’s nice when she just crawls into my lap like this. She doesn’t watch a lot of television, but since she’s barely awake, I figure I'd watch this scene with her. I didn't expect her to understand the story.

I got pretty involved emotionally in the film: they do a great job of depicting the inhumanity of slavery and the cries of the Hebrews for God to "Deliver Us." Amid several scenes of forced labor, we see Moses' family escaping and his mother's (Yachoved?) final lullaby as she gently floats him toward what she hopes is safety. As I'm watching this, I glance at my other daughter, three months old, napping, and I'm overwhelmed with emotion as I imagine the difficulty of the decision to seek a child’s safety at such risk. I brush away a tear from my own cheek and notice that Charis, with her back to me, seems stiff. I reach out to hug her and realize she completely understands what she's watching and is crying that a baby is floating away from his mother.

I wrap her in my arms trying to console her. In a few moments as she looks back at the screen, I decide to keep watching because Moses is safely drawn from the river and Miriam offers a prayer for his safety and the Hebrew's deliverance. I point Miriam (her middle name-sake) out to Charis as we both weep. I wipe her tears as Moses is safely adopted into a new family.

The preacher and English major in me so wants my children to understand stories. Stories shape our identity. Stories help us find our own place. A significant part of my responsibility as a father will be to tell my daughters stories that teach them about the world and their place in it. I had no idea Charis was old enough yet to follow a story with such intensity as she did on this film.

So one part of me is thrilled to reach this landmark in parenting. Now I can begin nurture that is not only physical and emotional but spiritual as well. But another part of me feels horrible that the first story I saw her understand is so tragic.