My wife Jessica and I both grew up around here. We knew each other briefly in high school in the mid-90’s, neither was impressed with the other, then moved away and lived our separate lives. Years later in 2004 we met up again, this time we decided the other was actually pretty cool, and got married. And by the time Jess and I moved to Haverhill in 2008 we were ready to have kids. We decided we wanted to give our kids some kind of church experience. We talked about religion and church and what our upbringings were like. Neither of our childhoods were particularly religious. We’d both been through first communion and confirmation, so I guess…Catholic? But it was something that, as prospective parents, we decided was important. Our reasoning went thusly: if we introduce them to religion at a young age, then later on they’ll be less likely to join a cult. Better they learn it from us, than on the streets. She had settled on a belief in a higher spiritual power, and I had recently discovered I was an atheist. So the search began and the bar was low. During that time, about a year later, we learned one of us was pregnant. Then we learned it was twins.
