An open letter to a beloved friend, soon to be gone

Dear Paci (or Binky, or “Bo-bo,” or whatever Lucia’s special name for you is – which we don’t know because she has YOU in her mouth when she says it),
I am realizing as the hour approaches when we are going to say good-bye how much I value you. I know that your primary attachment is to Lucia, and her to you, but I think I might have a secondary codependency with you. I encourage my daughter’s codependency with you because you have helped her sleep on nights when I was weary, quieted her during screaming fests that felt unbearable to me, in short, you have been there for her when I could not be. And that has made me happy while allowing you and Lucia to have a special, comforting relationship.

But now it’s time for you to go. As all “great” codependent relationships go, there comes a time when their harm becomes unavoidably obvious. And the irony is that the earlier a codependent relationship is broken, the easier it will be to extricate yourself from it. So now that Lucia is solidly attached to you, it is time for you to leave her – to leave us – to leave our family. We will send you away in a beautiful way, that honors your role (short as it has been) in our family yet also sets you free of each other forever.  You will be attached to a brilliant helium-filled balloon, and will be released by Lucia to soar into the clear blue sky. Perhaps “paci heaven”? I’m not sure how Lucia will respond initially, but I am sure she will go through withdrawal. Sleep might be more difficult for all of us. I will likely cry for your return alongside my daughter.

But, alas, you will be gone forever. We will have memories and many pictures to acknowledge your presence in our family’s lives. And we will mark your passing with grief. Yet it will be mixed with relief – relief that your impact on our daughter’s speech will be over and that any mark you left on her dental framework can begin to be reversed.

So I guess it’s good-bye, farewell, sayonara, adios. Enjoy your trip to the heavenlies, and think of us fondly…

Heather, for all of us

birthday reflections – a year of extremes

 

Today was my birthday (or still is, as a matter of fact, for two more hours). Due to my husband’s work commitments, I ended up having much of this afternoon and evening by myself with the girls – and now that they’re in bed, alone to reflect on this past year. Certainly a much quieter birthday than years past (like the year I had three surprise birthday parties!). It was definitely the messiest birthday dinner I’ve had, since my dinner guests smeared food all over their faces and threw it on the floor before deciding that their patience was up about halfway through my meal. But such is life with 9-month-old twins! And for all of the “inconveniences” or frustrations, there is an unspeakable joy that comes with having them in my life. I couldn’t imagine it any other way.

More reflections on this past year, which has been the year of extremes, follow:

Time is a strange thing, how it seems to speed up and slow down, yet keeps constantly ticking along. And birthdays are a reminder of that. As I think about life as it has been radically re-defined for me in the last year, I cannot imagine it any other way. I could not picture a life absent of the gifts of our twin daughters. And they are the gifts that have come with an equally heavy load of responsibility. God has given with them the gift of seeing a new depth of my need for Jesus Christ, exposing the places of false comfort I have sought for refuge instead of my Rock. I have found out how solid my God is when life has felt shaky. Literally – when we wondered whether these girls would make it far enough along before their birth.

This past year, more than any other so far, I have lived the extremes. God has shown me both extremes of resting in simply being (through over two months of bed rest) when I could not be active and of resting when there was no time to rest or sleep or do anything but survive and help these babies thrive.  There have been days that felt endless because of lack of activity and days that felt endless because of an absence of anything but activity. I have gone from lonely days to days when I wished for one moment alone. I have had months of anticipating the twins’ arrival and preparing for life to change dramatically and all the months since of reflecting and processing and adjusting to how their arrival has transformed our lives. I can remember what it was like to believe the illusion that I alone was in control of my schedule, my to-do list, my sleep, and could choose how to spend free time. The illusion has been exposed and those days are like a dream.

And yet the other extreme to the life-turned-upside-down adventure that parenting has been is the joy I have felt. I didn’t know how I would see these little faces and fall instantly in love. And how, six days later when we had to take our babies to the ER of the Children’s Hospital, a deep-seated fear would grip me as I realized how fragile were the lives of these little ones who had my heart.Then the relief I would feel a week later when we all arrived home (again) and Seth and I placed them in their crib to nestle next to each other, free of monitors and IV lines.  During that week in between, I experienced the wrestling of faith to entrust these ones to the God who cared about them more than I do and who had compassion on me that went even deeper than mine for them. Yes, it has been quite a year. The end result? More awareness of my weakness. More clinging to Christ for strength. More joy independent of circumstances. I can only hope and pray for more of that in the year to come. Only this coming year, I’m not planning on doubling our family size as in the year past!

a steep six-month learning curve: the first half of year one with twins

A few weeks ago (ok – actually almost three weeks ago now), our twins turned 6 months old. Since it was also the day after their Daddy’s 30th birthday, we didn’t really have a huge fanfare for them in celebration. Yet I’ve found myself celebrating various milestones and achievements – mostly along the lines of, “Yes! We all made it through half of a year!” So as I’ve had various thoughts flit through my head, I wanted to share a few of the things I’ve learned in six months, both humorous and heart-rending:

I’ve learned …

• that I can survive on MUCH less sleep than I ever thought possible
• how to cut a baby’s finger nails without cutting their fingers
• changing diapers in the middle of the night is rarely worth the wake-up – that’s why “dry max” was invented. we often push the 12-hour limits unless it’s of the smelly category (thankfully the girls usually save those for the day)
• hearing my babies’ cries can induce my own tears or anger, depending on the moment
• how heart-wrenching “crying it out” can feel
• the twins are more likely to synch their schedules together than to synch their schedules to my plans for them
• our twins’ average length for a nap is 45 minutes
• it is so tempting to compare my babies/parenting to others and feel either self-righteous or self-condemned
• guilt is part and parcel of being a mom: whether you feel guilty for how you feed them, whether you co-sleep or not, whether you work or not, for wanting time alone and then when you are alone for being apart from them …
• I will only take the girls out shopping with me if I am ready to answer, “so … are they twins?” and the ensuing questions, “are they identical or fraternal? … do they have the same personalities? … how do you tell them apart? … ” etc.
• they love music, dancing, and clapping
• Lucia and Alethia have very different personalities which require different care and nurture
• feeding solids really doesn’t help babies sleep through the night
• feeding solids is REALLY messy
• the church nursery is a wonderful way to care for families (they had their first experience there last Wednesday during our weekly women’s Bible study)
• a double ear infection means a cranky baby who has a difficult time sleeping & eating
• trust my instincts – so glad I took Alethia to the doctor to get diagnosed with her double ear infection the day I did
• I cannot be a good mother without my amazing, supportive husband alongside me and being such a great father
• we need our community to raise these girls
• there is nothing better than my baby’s smile at me
• I can choose to get things done during a day or to be present with and attentive towards my babies – usually not both (at least not well)
• babies get cold quickly!
• parenting is impossible without God’s daily and moment-by-moment grace (which often includes sending help just when we need it)
• it’s 10:30 pm and I really should have gotten to bed an hour ago – because the girls will be waking up at 6:30 am regardless of when I go to bed … so off to bed I go!

September already!

There are many reasons why I can hardly believe that it’s September. Like so many of you, I’m asking, “Where did the summer go?” Yet unlike many of you, my answer is rather mundane: umm … it passed while I sat in a recliner observing the comings and goings of our Norfolk neighborhood, wondering how close I was to delivering these twins. There is some grief – that I couldn’t make it to Bryan & Megan’s wedding, that Seth & I only spent a couple days at the beach together (in contrast to last summer when we took full advantage of being only 30 minutes from the beach by going every Saturday), that my favorite of seasons is almost gone, that hanging out with friends and family was always in the same atmosphere: our house. Of course, I would say that it was all worth it – and certainly will be once we meet these daughters of ours.

I am certainly in a very different season of expectancy now. All of my self-given “projects” are over; leaving me to read and write and chat with friends. I feel like “circling the wagons,” in the sense of wanting to soak up each minute of time left when family time still consists of just Seth and me. We are as prepared as we can be, knowing full well that there is nothing that will quite prepare us for the chaotic joy that is ahead of us. I am not sleeping well at night because I can’t get comfortable, and then once I do, I inevitably wake 1-2 hours later and then can’t get back to sleep. I’m not too tired during the day, surprisingly, but I wish I could store up more sleep for the sleepless days & nights sure to come.

And there’s a hurricane coming through this weekend. Three people have told me that the low barometric pressure brought on by such a storm makes labor much more likely. There is some interesting research that seems to support this. And so now that I am at 34 weeks and now that we are in September and now that I feel like there’s really nothing left I need to do … I can’t help but wonder if this weekend (Labor Day weekend, incidentally) will be “the” weekend. Part of me is scared and part of me is excited. It’s similar to the way I’ve felt before each mission trip I’ve embarked upon (to Haiti, Mexico, Ireland, New Orleans): once preparations are completed and it’s the night before leaving, I have a sense of exhilaration mixed with fear. Like I am diving off of a cliff and can’t quite see what’s below. Yet each time, my faith in the God who flies with me – who not only beckons me beyond the comfortable but also goes with me into the unknown – has been strengthened tremendously. I see new sides to God that I never would have noticed had I stayed in the comfortable. Certainly becoming parents to twins will be even more faith-building as we must trust God in ways we cannot even anticipate. Here’s to the journey ahead … which will take me far beyond what has been a comfortable (albeit boring and mundane at times) summer.

A Time to Read and a Time to Write

In thinking about life as seasons, I believe that the book of Ecclesiastes gives much wisdom in its most well-known (and oft-quoted) passage about the passing of time – and what different times are for (Eccl 3:1-8):

¹ There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:² a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

³ a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

⁶ a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

⁸ a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

We have recently transitioned from our “time of saying good-bye” to a “time of saying hello” and are coming out of our “time of adjustment.” The grocery store doesn’t feel so foreign anymore. I don’t usually get lost going to the places I need to go in a week. We are making new friends. I have my two favorite classes at the gym that I schedule my week around (Casey’s awesome TurboKick class and Becky’s BodyFlow class – combo tai-chi/yoga/pilates). I now go to ballet class with two friends on Wednesday evenings where I’m learning how to pirouette (and arabesque and demi-plie …). Church is beginning to be filled with more people who are familiar rather than unfamiliar. Women’s Bible Study started two weeks ago. Seth & I have begun weekly tutoring with underprivileged kids in Norfolk, and we had week two of our community group tonight. Counseling is gradually picking up week to week.

And yet even in the midst of so much going on, I’ve been in a season of reading rather than writing. I know there’s a lot to process still, but I’m enjoying a “time to read.” And that season will eventually (like tonight) overflow into a “time to write.” On my bookshelf right now:

Freakonomics by Levitt/Dubner – reading this for book club – more interesting than I thought it would be, as one who is certainly NOT economically inclined

In The Company of Cheerful Ladies the 6th in “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” series by Alexander McCall Smith – the fictional series about a female detective who sets up shop in a small African town in Botswana – very interesting read!

Undoing Depression by Richard O’Connor – it’s been surprisingly refreshing to read as an honest look at depression and its treatment – though not from a Christian point of view, his viewpoint does not readily espouse any one particular psychological school of thought and he advocated for ideas that I see as being answered fully with a Biblical worldview. Here’s his commentary on the series of various psychological theories over the past few decades:

“Now most new ideas are being touted as paradigm-shifters. The concept is in danger of losing its meaning by being trivialized. But the fact is that the Freudian theory of human functioning has been on its last legs for some time, and we wait for a new theory, a new paradigm, to replace it. … New medications have helped literally millions of people, and understanding certain problems as physiologically rather than psychologically based has changed somewhat how we think of ourselves. But although there is a wish to achieve a biochemical theory of human behavior, our current knowledge leaves us far from it; and if we had it, it would not answer our most interesting human questions. (p. 51)”

Talk about a set-up for a “new” paradigm to be introduced! Yet one that has been in existence since the beginning of the world … And especially since my philosophy is that these “most interesting human questions” cannot be answered except by the author of those most interesting humans, God Himself.

There’s one more segment that I found especially poignant as well:

“Anyone who defines himself in terms of other people is at risk for depression. The more sources of gratification one has in one’s life, and the more predictable and controllable those resources, the less risk for depression. If a woman is taught to define her worth in terms of keeping her husband happy, she is too dependent on an arbitrary and capricious source of gratification. If she is taught that her worth is measured by raising happy and successful children, her self-esteem depends on forces over which she really has very little control.”

Although O’Connor’s point here is to show how cultural expectations contribute to more depression in women than men (who primarily define themselves by a “more predictable source of gratification” in their jobs), his observations ring true to Biblical teaching. St. Augustine said “our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.” And there is warning after warning throughout the Bible not to put your trust in people but in God. We are created in God’s image, and so we are created to glorify God. How do we do so? A modern-day theologian, John Piper, summarizes Biblical teaching well when he says, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” Again and again there are invitations throughout the Bible to “come, you who are thirsty, come and eat …” (Is. 55) and “come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). So certainly any counseling for one struggling with depression should include attention not only to the physical aspects but also to the underlying spiritual aspect as well – which is a soul desirous of a closer relationship with the Creator and Redeemer.

In my “cue” to read next is Beautiful Boy about a father’s journey through his son’s addiction. No more light summer reading for me!

Hello to Norfolk, VA

I realize this post has been several weeks in coming. All I have to say is that moving is quite disruptive. Although we had physically unpacked our boxes in less than a week, the “emotional” unpacking and settling in can’t be managed that quickly. And especially since we journeyed back to Philadelphia after our first week here for an unexpected and permanent farewell to a dear friend (Beverlee Kirkland) who has gone Home to Jesus. I hope to be able to blog about her life in a future post. The emotions are a bit too fresh now. She had lived a very full life – 61 years – and she was physically tired from complications of diabetes for 25 years. But she is very dearly missed, as she and her husband, Collier, were mentors for us during our time at Cresheim Valley Church.

Now about Norfolk … in short, we love it. It’s been a very smooth move, with a warm welcome from the church where Seth is an assistant pastor (Trinity Presbyterian). Here are my top 10 favorite things about it so far (but not necessarily in order):

(1) our BEAUTIFUL spacious apartment!! where we even have a guest room … and the luxuries of a dishwasher and washer/dryer

(2) being walking distance from a river walk area and the church and the grocery store and friends

(3) the Chrysler Art Museum, which we’ve visited twice already, is a 5 min walk from us and actually an impressive collection of art

(4) 30 minutes to the beach! (and you don’t have to buy beach tags once you’re there)

(5)  the people at Trinity Pres. Church – they’ve showered us with dinner invitations and beach invitations .. we feel very welcomed already

(6) the sound of Southern summer crickets every night

(7) people are friendly, for the most part – like you say “hi” to strangers you pass on the street

(8) the  local “Naro” theater in Ghent, where we walked to see “Up” (a good movie – I recommend it!) and paid only $6/ticket

(9) water, water everywhere … we’re a peninsula surrounded by water: the Chesapeake Bay, the Elizabeth River, and the Atlantic Ocean

(10) I’m back in the South again. Enough said y’all …

Farewell to Philadelphia

I woke up  last night at 2:00 a.m. with two prominent feelings. One being excitement because we finally move today! I am looking forward to embarking on the journey we’ve been discussing for months. It is time to set sail. All is in order (or seems to be); farewells have been exchanged; welcomes are forthcoming and the adventure awaits us.

And the second feeling was that of muscle aches and pains that remind me that I’m 30. My body now feels the effects of scrubbing down our apartment yesterday. And it was sore and didn’t want me to sleep.

So after 45 minutes of tossing and turning, I saw this as an opportunity for my final entry from Philadelphia. What a five years it’s been! As we’ve said good-bye, I’ve been reminded of just how rich it has been … and just how many chapters have been written in these 5 years since September 2004. I am not the same person who arrived with my brother Jonathan and Uncle Billy and Mom to 308 Bethlehem Pike and the basement apartment I would call home for my first semester at Westminster Seminary.

I came as Heather Elizabeth Davis; I leave as Heather Davis Nelson. I arrived very much alone; I leave surrounded by layers of community – seminary, CCEF, New Life Dresher, Cresheim Valley Church, World Harvest Mission, The Counseling Center at Chelten, and Chestnut Hill. From single and alone to married and in love with Seth. From an elementary school Spanish teacher to a pastoral counselor. From a PC user to a lover of Mac/Apple. (Thanks largely to my husband’s influence.)

I will miss this place and these people very very much.  There will be future reflections I’m sure. Countless ones. In the rearview mirror, it will become clearest what Philadelphia has meant to me and the way this season and these communities have shaped me.

For now, I bid you farewell, City of Brotherly Love and those we love who dwell within it.

a ship in harbor

The analogy came to me tonight while talking to my friend Ellen: that this season of transition feels like being in a ship in harbor, waiting to set sail for distant lands. We are loading up the cargo, one box at a time. And we are untying the ropes that bind us to Philadelphia one strand at a time. Each good-bye is a letting go. Tearful at the leaving, joyful at the reflection of what the friendship has meant. We will soon be standing on the ship’s deck, waving good-bye to our friends on the other side. And there will be tears on both sides.

And we will “set sail” to a “new land” of Norfolk, Virginia, where a new life awaits us – yet to be discovered. There will be new friends greeting us at the dock, helping us unload our cargo and initiate ties of relationship that will bind us to our future home. There will be a season of many “hello’s”.

But now is the season of saying “good-bye.” And so I pray that I will be fully present for each one. Soaking up the memories – the celebration of what has been enjoyed in these five years in Philadelphia.