Kids Update

A few of you long-time readers may be wondering how Nathan and Carissa have been doing during my long absence from blogging.

Nathan is doing great! He's coming up on twelve this summer (and I'm trying to practice admitting I have a twelve year old!), and 6th grade has been his best so far. He attends a great school with two of the best teachers on earth, and loves participating in adapted sports such as volleyball, bowling and basketball. He has been quite healthy and his CMS is in a very stable phase. He constantly entertains us all with his sense of humor and has really been working on making sounds and vocalizing recently.

Carissa is a wonder. She has finally finished potty-training and is smarter than her Daddy and I combined, although we are fighting hard to keep her from figuring that out yet! I must admit that I loooove having a three-year old-I never know what she will say next, and her observations on life force me to look at things through brand new eyes. She has become Mommy's buddy lately, and loves helping with any type of housework or chore (which I'm sure she will completely outgrow long before the teen years start!) She has a cadre of about six imaginary friends that she "leads/bosses" all around the house, and is convinced that all girls are princesses.

Holland v. Italy

The ladies over at girltalk have continued their series on special moms with special needs kids, introducing us to another amazingly courageous mother, Irene. In their third post in this series (on June 14) they shared a mind-blowing, biblically-sound article entitled, "Then shall the lame leap like a deer; God and the disabled," written by Peter Avery, who is the dad of a child with special needs. They received special permission to link to it, so hop on over to their blog and click on their link to read it. It is the best biblical argument regarding why God allows disabilities that I have ever read. In fact, I printed out a copy to give to the next well-meaning, overly-spiritual person who implies to us that something is wrong because Nathan has not been healed yet!

A friend of mine who has a brother with disabilities commented on my first post regarding mothers with special needs kids by saying, "I have spent many nights as a teenager crying myself to sleep because I was mourning that my little brother would would not be able to have the life I had dreamed of for him." She hit on a fundamental issue of having a loved one who is disabled-mourning the loss of their opportunity for a normal life. When Nathan was born, we were so caught up in believing that God would heal him any day and trying to learn to take care of him, that it was months before this period of mourning set in in my life. No one explained to me for a long time that when you expect and plan for a healthy baby, and your baby is born with disabilities, you mourn the loss of the healthy baby you anticipated and planned for, just as if you had lost a child to death. A wonderful nurse who cared for Nathan right after he was born sent me a card, and in it she included an essay that changed my life and allowed me to finally stop and mourn my loss, so that I could move on to healing. It is entitled, "Welcome to Holland," and was written by Emily Perl Kingsly. It reads:

"I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland."

I still cry every time I read this, because it so perfectly describes the emotions of having a child with disabilites. During our eleven years I have indeed learned to love the tulips, windmills and Rembrants of Holland. And I have now been blessed to live in both "Holland" and "Italy," since the birth of our healthy daughter, Carissa. I have finally been able to experience for myself that both destinations have their pluses and minuses. But I wouldn't trade my time in either place for anything in the world!

Brainwashing Exposed!!!

I walked into the kitchen this afternoon to find the contents of my purse strewn all over the floor. The following enlightening conversation then ensued:

Carissa: I'm gonna put all Mommy's stuff back in her purse! (Stated emphatically, as if this is entirely her idea and she knows it's a good one.)
Mommy: That sounds like a good idea.
Carissa: Oh look, a coin! It must be Daddy's!
Mommy: Well, it was in Mommy's purse. Don't you think it might belong to Mommy?
Carissa: No, it's Daddy's. All the coins belong to Daddy.

I am now convinced that brainwashing has been taking place around here during the 12.4 minutes a week that I am out of the house!

Five for Friday #2: Just like my mamma

Wednesday night there was no one keeping the nursery (since it was a 5th Wed.) so I got to stay home with Carissa and Nathan. Nothing like feeling as if you are playing hookey to bring out the creativity in you! I spent about two solid hours in my kitchen, rocking out to some great worship by Salvadore and making homemade Spaghetti con polpette, or spagetti with meatballs. This was a total 'food of love' thing! I had freshly ground beef, veal and pork for the meatballs, gorgeous extra virgin olive oil, beautiful summer basil, and cans of sweet San Marzano tomatoes from Italy. I was like the conductor of a world-class orchestra with the world's first-chairs at my disposal!

Need I mention that it turned out spectacular!! Chris did his best "What About Bob?" impression, groaning in pleasure with each bite. Since I was using my God-given talents in an expression of praise to God, I'm pretty sure I was having church there in that kitchen with the music and the simmering pots! I am positive that it was one of the best worship experiences of my life!!

Now I must add that, all of my life, my mother has been famous for forgetting something in the microwave whenever she makes a big meal. We will have eaten and be cleaning up the kitchen, and open the microwave to reveal the corn or beans or whatever that she got so busy she just left there! Well, I am my mamma's daughter! When I started my meatballs, I lovingly sauteed the finely minced onions and garlic in the beautiful, green olive oil. The concoction was too hot to put directly into the meat mixture, so I stuck it in the freezer to cool for a minute. Guess what greeted me the next morning?? I just about cried!

My Champion

Today was Challenge Day for Special Olympics at Nathan's school. He competed along with his classmates in the Beach Volleyball event! I was so proud of him. They had adapted a huge slingshot to launch the volleyball over the net so that each student could "serve." Nathan served twice and returned the volley back over the net several times.

I am always so overhelmed by the community support for our Special Olympics day. To see the outpouring of support and the look of pride on the kids' faces brings me to tears every year. Of course, I have to hide those tears, because nothing embarrases a ten-year old boy more than a weepy mother!

I'm tremendously proud of my guy, but in a way I'm proud of us too. It is mindblowing to realize that a child like Nathan, on full life-support can even go to school every day, much less participate in an event like this. So, just this once, I want to say,
"YEAH!!!!, McMILLAN FAMILY!!"

Chris' Consolation

Make an online slide show at onetruemedia.com

I made this for Chris after hearing this song today, and thinking about how much joy just being with Carissa brings to him. It turned out so well that I had to share it!

con·so·la·tion (kŏn'sə-lā'shən) n.- One that consoles; a comfort

All Halls Are Decked!

Well, as usual, I'm a day late and a dollar short! Boomama has once again put together one of her fabulous Tours of Homes for Christmas, and I just found out about it last night around midnight-too late to participate. But I thought it would be great to share my holiday decorations, especially since none of our family ever gets to see our home decorated for Christmas! While on the tour (which I recommend you not start unless you have about two days to sit at your computer, because each home is more beautiful than the last!) I found these slide shows, so I put one together to share with everyone! Welcome to my Christmas home!

Just a few notes on the pictures:

• The 'baby food jar' tree and the Santa were made by my two fabulously talented aunts. (Maybe I do have a crafting gene somewhere in there!) My aunt Debbie made the tree by gluing empty baby food jars together on their sides in the shape of a tree. She drilled a hole in each lid and put a string of Christmas tree lights inside (one light in each hole in each lid), and filled each jar with tinsel. A ribbon gets glued around the outside of the whole thing and a star goes on top! Genius! My aunt Donna made the Santa from half of a bleach bottle, and if you want to know how I'll have to have her give you a call! I treasure these handmade decorations from my loved ones!
• The two middle stockings are the kids'; they were handmade by my great-aunt Mozelle. (Okay, so I come from a long line of crafters-I just need to get with the program, I guess, and embrace the craftiness!) She made a stocking for Nathan after he was born, and when she sent it to us she sent an extra "in case we ever needed another one." Every year that stocking would mock me when I took our three out, knowing that we would likely never have another child. But God answered the longing of our hearts and gave us Carissa, and now we, indeed, have need of that other stocking! Aunt Mo died before Carissa was ever born to us, but I believe that somehow she sees those matching stockings hanging side by side on my mantle and praises God along with me!
• A co-worker gave me the wooden reindeer family. If you look really closely, the one that looks like it's about the size of an adolescent seems to have a smirk on it's face! Trez' Realistic! I smile every year when I put these out.
• Our front door has been 'scraped and taped' in preparation for painting, so that's why each pane has a blue border-no holiday effect intended!
• The star ornament has a picture of Nathan with reindeer antlers from kindergarten in it and the wreath of handprints is my FAVORITE-he was in preschool when he made it! I am looking forward to adding ornaments that Carissa makes to our collection in the future.
• Our Advent wreath is on my cake pedestal, so that when Nathan can't come to it, it can go to him!

Our decorations are simple and full of memories, but full of love as well. I hope these pictures share our joy with you this Christmas season!

It's beginning to look alot like...

Sorry for the lapse in posting...the holiday season is here and as a mom and a pastor's wife it truly seems that the to-do list is never-ending! But I am really excited about Christmas this year! I've had our tree up for about a week now, which is the earliest I've ever put it up. The halls are finally decked and I have been in the Christmas-crafty mood for the last week too! Now, I must say that I am not a crafty person. I am the girl who wanders around in Michael's saying, "What do they use this stuff for, anyway?!" But so far I made a new wreath for the back door, cinnamon-applesauce ornaments with Nathan and a ton of bows for the church and our house. Could I possibly have picked up some kind of crafting virus last time I went in Michael's?

I think one reason I am so full of the Christmas spirit this year is that I have little two-year-old eyes to see the holiday anew with. Having my daughter around is definitely making this Christmas more fun than any other I've had so far! I stayed up until 1 a.m. decorating the tree, just so I could see her face when she came down the stairs in the morning and saw it for the first time. And I must add, it was so totally worth it!!

Also, this is the second year that we have celebrated Advent as a family. Growing up in a Pentecostal background, I had never heard of the Advent season until a couple of years ago. Chris and I felt that celebrating the anticipation of the coming Christ child, which is the focus of Advent, would be a great balance to the secular anticipation that has swallowed the holiday season. So we have an Advent wreath and candles, and each night we light the candles and have a small devotion, sing a Christmas carol, and pray together as a family. It has birthed in me a new, giddy awareness of my soul's longing for Christ and a childlike anticipation of the joy in realizing that He has come for us all! As I decorate the tree or tie bows, I feel as if my soul is singing out John's words with renewed wonder, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

You see, it is so easy to celebrate and worship the miracle of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross or His triumphant resurrection, but if we are to understand the fullness of those miracles we must also fully realize the miracle of His birth. All the world was looking for a warrior to come to the rescue of the Jews, and eventually us all! But eternal, omnipotent God himself stepped through the portal of unending time and space and squeezed into the tiny, squirming form of a baby boy. He gave up his limitless authority over all of the heavens and the earth to take on helpless flesh in order to become salvation to us all. The knowledge of it transfixes me, as it must have those cold, lonely shepherds two thousand years ago, when the hosts of heaven appeared singing "Glory to God in the highest!"

So I hang lights and bake cookies and twist bows, all the while humming beautiful songs of a baby in a stable while joy steals over my very existence! Merry Christmas!

Zoo skies, smilin' at me...

After an incredibly jam-packed last few weeks, with events that ranged from our church's 75th Anniversary services to a week alone with the kids while Chris went to Ecuador, we kicked back today and visited the National Zoo. Despite cloudy skies and chilly temps Chris, Carissa and I had the time of our lives! (Nathan had school, and we needed to check out how accessible the animals are for someone in a wheelchair before we take him, so we have now promised that he will visit as soon as a sunny vacation day comes up!)

When we first moved to the area Chris and I would pick a new site around Washington each Monday on his day off and hop on the Metro to go see it. We moved here in October, so we spent that first winter freezing our bee-hinds off around DC, but we had the place virtually to ourselves. We have slacked off from doing this in recent years since our little one came along, so it was great to get back out there and explore. The National Zoo had been on our to-do list for some time!

I would be hard-pressed to pick a favorite site from today. I guess for me personally I totally loved seeing the pandas in their new habitat, which just opened last week. (You can check it out for yourself from the comfort of your home at the National Zoo's great website, but do yourself a favor and plan a trip soon!) Tai Shan, the 15-month old cub, was asleep in a tree-how do they do that without falling out?!?-so his mom, Mei Xiang, ambled out onto one of the rock formations and stretched out to nap. Just like a mom to make the most of her toddler's naptime and a sunny, warm spot! The "stroller-brigade" moms, who seemed to be the only other people in the park today, looked jealous.

I have to say that living in an area where you have the opportunity to visit one of the world's best zoos on the spur of the moment is totally great! Most of the time we are so wrapped up in the daily maze of our existance here on the confines of church property that we begin to take that a little for granted, but I hope we will get back out there and experience all that there is to do and see in this richly diverse area we now call home.

In his blog this week, Chris quoted Mark Batterson as saying that we should seek to collect experiences and not possessions in our life, so today we definately added to our experience collection!

Earrings and Poop

Oh the joys of motherhood! Last week Chris left for a missions trip to Ecuador. He hadn't even been gone 24 hours when my little busybody proceeded to quietly slip into our bedroom and swallow 5 (yes i wrote 5-F I V E) of my stud earrings! I found her with the earrings and counted them out to realize that five mates were missing and the only logical place they could be was inside my daughter! Her pediatrician and my Dad (who was the only person I could think coherently to call for advice) said "Take her to the ER for an x-ray." Sure enough, there they all were. (I'm certain this x-ray has now been added to some radiologist's "Most strange things kids have swallowed" collection!!) Then I had the extreme joy of watching the, shall we say, output for the next week to make sure the earrings made it out of her system! Needless to say, I will be reminding Chris of this little chore when it comes time to buy Mother's Day gifts next year!

And to think, some people might think the life of a stay-at-home Mom and pastor's wife is boring!

(By the way, Chris took 12 others with him on the missions trip-up from two last year. They prayed with 84 people to accept Christ, and ministered to hundreds of others! And to think, by staying home with the kids and fishing through poop so Daddy could go preach to the nations, I had a small stake in that kingdom work!!)

RAT-KETEERING

Since I spent the first eight years of motherhood in a really unique situation, there are many standard parenting experiences that I am now getting to try for the first time. One of those happened this week. Our first trip to Chuck E. Cheese.

I would like to go on record here as stating that this is the biggest racket I have ever seen in my life!! Where else can you take your family for a meal and pay $33 for a pizza that tastes more like the boxes that the frozen variety come in at the grocery store, and desperately collect tickets in order to get "prizes" even more cheap and flimsy than those toys that come out of the machines in the front of stores for a quarter!! When my husband came back from the counter and told me that in order to add some semblance of nutrition to our dinner by ordering salads, this childhood-mob-controlled "fun" place wanted $4.99 EACH for a salad bar that consisited of bagged salad mix, some of those processed 'baco' bits, and three (I am not kidding) choices of salad dressing!

When my nephew was little, I was horrified to discover that my brother and sister-in-law had actually told their kids that Chuck E. Cheese had burned down, and they could no longer go. I thought that was the worst parenting technique I had ever heard of. Well, I owe them an apology, because now my eyes have been opened, and I can begin to understand why they would be driven to such a deception.

I fervently hope that Carissa promptly forgot that place as soon as we walked out of there. Otherwise we may have to call her Uncle Rick and have him tell her his Chuck E. Cheese story!

Home Again, Home Again

I made a quick trip to NC this week to meet my enchanting new nephew and see my beloved brother bask in his "new dad" glow. I knew we would not all be able to go down together for at least a month, and I didn't want to miss this special time when a new life is so NEW to all of those around them, so I just jumped in the car and ran down for a couple of days. (I figure, "Shoot! If I can bring two kids into this world myself then I can drive myself down the road to see my family!")

Since I had so much time alone on the six-and-a-half hour drive I got a lot of overdue thinking done. Sounds scary, huh? The following represents the highlight, or at least the only part I could legally put in print.

I spent time with those who know me best and love me anyway. The ones who have seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and the downright indescribable in me. The ones who remember what I looked like in Wonder Woman underoos, and know all of my childhood nicknames. I listened to the voices and looked into the faces of those whose DNA I carry, whose own stories have shaped not only who they are, but who I am as well. I drove around and saw the places where monumental things happened in my life. My Ebenezer Stones, so to speak. The places where my sweetheart kissed me. The church were we discovered God's call on our lives, and where we pledged to love each other until death. The hospital where my baby boy was born, and where one life ended for me and another one began. And I realized that doing these things grounds me again-it makes me remember who I am and what I can do. It also reminds me of all that God has done in my life. It serves as a kind of plumb line, bring me back into alignment with the core of who I have been and who I am today.

The constant push and pull of expectations and deadlines that make up being in ministry tend to reshape me like the tides redecorate the shore every day. Being surrounded by people who don't know your whole story kind of redefines who you are, as you morph into only being what those people see in you. The reflection of more shallow waters. But I have come back stronger and more centered from my quick trip home. I not only drove several hours to cuddle my baby brother's baby, I launched myself back out into the deep waters of who I am.

When Will The Week End?

This has been just a yucky week! Nathan had surgery on Monday, which went well and he is recuperating quickly. That's the good news! I came down with a horrible head cold the day after his surgery. So I have been unable to go to the hospital any day this week to be with Nathan. I usually handle all of his acute medical care information, so poor Chris has had to call me a million times each day with another question from the medical team. It seems that the mindset of the team in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) is, "If it's working well, let's tinker with it and see if we can get it to work better. That made it worse? Oh, well!" Anyhoo-it is killing me to not see Nathan for three days or be there for him when he needs me! I feel like the worst parent in the world!

Meanwhile, two of our staff members had new babies last week, and as the Women's Ministries Coordinator it falls to me to arrange for some meals to be brought for the new moms. I made phone calls and put together a schedule of the women who agreed to prepare a meal and gave it out on Sunday, so that everything would be in place before heading into Nathan's surgery on Monday. Almost every single woman on that schedule had to move their night, or something came up and they couldn't do it. To quote Charlie Brown, "AAARRRGGGHH!"

On top of all of this, I completely forgot our weekly Women's prayer group this morning. I suspected a ball would get dropped soon, but I hate that this was it. I hope the women will be understanding.

Chris and I were talking on the way home from the hospital about how no one outside of the two of us really understands all that the last ten years has held for us. I am amazed that even after ten years of being in the hospital and numerous surgeries, it is the hardest thing in the world to leave your baby in the hands of others and wait for the outcome. It is not just hard; I find it to be agony. I don't think I've ever told anyone this besides Chris. Everyone else just takes it for granted that we handle all of this so well, and I am grateful for the testimony that brings to God, but it never gets easy or routine.

At the hospital we used to frequent they made you tell your child goodbye in the hallway and they wheeled him away from you while he was still awake. At least here they let one of us go into the operating room with him until he goes to sleep. But I still have to force my feet to walk out of that room. And then the waiting is excruciating to me, who is used to being at least well informed of his status every moment of the day, if not outright responsible for his status! It is definately one of those times when I literally leave him in the Lord's hands!

I don't know how I could parent if I didn't have faith in a God who is bigger than this life. There are so many uncertainties and things we cannot control, especially with a special-needs child. When I feel like I'm about to come unglued I have to remind myself that I am never in control anyway, that even when things seem well in control, the control lies in God's hands. And I can't think of a better place for it to be!

Celebration Day

I just read an article by H.B. London in which he stated that the month of July is special to him because it is the month when he "celebrates his wife and their son." What an astounding concept! Instead of celebrating a 'day' when your loved one was born, what if we celebrated the person? For example, instead of celebrating my son's birthday in June, what if all day that day we celebrated everything we love about him and all of the wonderful things that makes him who he is? Instead of it being 'Nathan's birthday' it could be 'Nathan Day'! Wouldn't this do wonderful things for our children's self-esteem? What a great way to counteract the 'cookie-cutter' cultural influences our kids are innundated with every day, and reinforce that they are special to us because of who they are. Let's face it, most of our work as parents day in and day out is geared towards pointing our children to who we want them to become. We must purpose to remember to reinforce that we love who they are. This would be a banner day to drive this message home in a big way. I think I have just inaugurated 'Chris day', 'Nathan Day', and 'Carissa Day' (which happens to be the same day as what I hope would be 'Allison Day'!!) around here!

My Mommy Anniversary

My precious boy turned ten years old today! It feels like yesterday that he came to us, and yet when I think back over all that we have gone through and how much we have grown it feels like forever. I often joke that I define our life together as "BN" and "AN" (Before Nathan and After Nathan); I have trouble even remembering events from before he came to us or what I was like then.

I have celebrated my amazing boy's accomplishments all day today, but I would like to take a moment and reflect on what these ten years have meant to a mother. In a sense this is not just Nathan's birthday, its the anniversary of when I became a mom!

I can't help but remember that day ten years ago when I was up and walking for the first time after the c-section. I walked with my Dad down to the NICU, and the nurse met us at the door of Nathan's cubicle with a knowing smile. When she asked, "How would you like to hold him today?", I was hit with a powerful surge of both longing and bald fear at the same time. I went in and sat down while she arranged all of the then-strange-but-now-second-nature tubes and wires. Then she put those seven pounds of little baby boy into my arms, the arms that had longed for a child through months of dashed hopes and desperate prayers, through a pregnancy frought with sickness when the only light of hope was the promise of full arms, through the last two days when we had been seperated by two different hospitals and the gulf of fear and uncertainty we had all been set adrift in. Despite the narcotics keeping him from having the seizures they said he would always have (and never has!) I watched him snuggle into those arms, my arms, and in that moment everything melted away. I knew in that moment that no matter what happened from that point on I would never be the same. It was at least half an hour before I realized that both Daddy and the nurse had slipped away to give us some privacy. In the background the radio they left playing in the unit all the time started playing Celine Dion's "The Way You Love Me." I still think of it as 'our' song and dissolve into tears whenever I hear it. I fantasize about what it would be like to dance with Nathan to it at his wedding, him tall and handsome in a tux and me a puddle at his side.

That is the most happy memory I have of Nathan coming into our lives. Most people say that the happiest day of their life is the day their children were born, but with Nathan we just couldn't say that. It was an earthquake day; a day full of shock and pain, fear and questions. But each day we-all three of us-just survived;that was a miracle in itself. And each day it got a little better until one day four months later we brought him home for the first time.

In the ten years since then there have been wonderful times and there have been dark ones. We've come about as close as you can to losing him about five times; but God, in His infinite grace, has let us keep him a little while longer each time. And wrapped around those brief and terrifying times have been sublime heaven. The way he smiles at me like no one else. The sound of his laughter when it's just the two of us talking and I make a dumb joke. The joy he shows at seeing any of his grandparents. His pride at riding the bus to kindergarten like a big boy(and how hard it was for me to let him do it!). Watching him give his heart to Jesus. The days run together and next thing I know he's ten years old. He's going into the fifth grade, and he gets mad when there's a snow day that cancels school because he loves it so much. He's the best big brother I have ever seen. He cries when his heart is moved during worship at church. He is truly my hero, the strongest and yet most gentle person I will ever know. Even though it is my highest privilege that I know him better than anyone else, I will never fully know what he has had to endure. I have only seen him angry a handful of times, and somehow he still keeps that loving and open spirit that could so easily be bitter and hopeless.

I have often questioned how God picked someone as frail and weak as myself to be Nathan's mom, but I thank Him continually that he did. In sharing the testimony of all that God has done for us in Nathan's life I often quote a scripture from the book of Job where Job says of God, "Before, my ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen you." I have known about God since I was three years old, but I can truely say that now I know Him. He has been there through these ten long years and I know He will continue to be there throughout whatever Nathan's future holds.