“I want to hold the really hard things and the really beautiful things together at the same time.”
Jodie Toresdahl, Upper West Side
In spite of the challenges of parenting in New York City, Jodie Toresdahl’s commitment to and love for her home grew deeper in the midst of the pandemic.
“When the pandemic was just beginning, my husband and I decided to stay in New York City with our kids. When everything shut down, and more and more families talked about leaving the city, I braced myself for the pull to pack up too. But I just never felt it. If anything, the desire to raise our kids here has only deepened. We’ve been here for six years, and during that time the city has almost come to feel like the fifth member of our family.
Love stories are hard, though. They’re not always smooth, and things don’t always look perfect, but there’s a commitment. As much as I love New York City, my commitment isn’t necessarily to this geographical location, but to the Person who has called my family here. We ask God all the time, Are You sure this is still where we should be? I really do trust that this is where God has our family right now. And if that changes, then I’ll continue to trust Him.
People who fled the city got a lot of news coverage. There are a lot of empty storefronts and empty apartments now. People in our neighborhood left, people in my daughter’s school left, people in my church left — and that’s okay. I think people are doing the very best they can right now, and for some people that means leaving NYC. But in all of those pockets of community, there are more people who have stayed. As someone who also chose to stay, I’m looking around and seeing a lot of familiar faces who love this city just as much as I do. We’re committed to each other, and we all want to see our city thriving again, to see it filled.
Despite our assurance that we are exactly where we need to be, parenting hasn’t been easy this year. Having a seven-year-old and three-year-old with very different needs in the same apartment all day is tough. It’s also hard to constantly tell them, No, we can’t go there right now, or No, we can’t go to your friend’s house. I don’t like telling them “no” all the time. I have to wake up every morning and say, God, I cannot do this without You. I am not capable of raising these children without You. I don’t know how to do this, please help. He shows up every single time with a peace that I cannot even fully describe.
On the first day that everything shut down in March, I started a 40-day writing project where I wrote vignettes of everyday happenings. I think this whole last season could have been such a blur because of how hard it was. But when I look back at these little snapshots of life that I wrote, I realize that we’ve been learning to hold the good and the hard things together. My daughter and son have become such good friends. We’ve gotten to know some of our neighbors better because everybody’s home all the time. One day, after a picnic in our courtyard, we were heading back inside at the same time as a neighbor who has lived in our building for six years, but we’d never met. We ended up having the sweetest conversation together, walking each other back home.
On the other hand, I’ve had to keep learning how to help my kids navigate a lot of hard things. They have had to say goodbye to friends on a pretty regular basis. We’ve had conversations about grief and racism and homelesness. These aren’t abstract things to them. They are growing up in a city where they see hard things every time they walk outside, but I get to be the one to help them learn how to respond to those things. I get to be the one to point out the hard and the beautiful.
Living in New York City has given me a better picture of God’s Kingdom than anywhere else I’ve ever been. As a parent in this city, I can look for darkness and look for light, and have conversations with my kids about both. In a similar way, I’m learning to ask God not only to break my heart for what breaks His, but also to make my heart come alive with the same things that delight Him.
New York City is filled with brokenness, but it’s also filled with people who are fully alive — people with hope. As my family renews our commitment to this city, I want to hold the really hard things and the really beautiful things together at the same time. I love being able to see both when I go for a run by myself or walk down the street with my kids — the difficulty and the beauty, co-existing in the path I take as I head home.”
