Rhodes: Love despite divorce

I still remember the day my parents told us they were splitting up.

My brother and I were asked to take a seat on the green and brown plaid couch, the same one we snuggled on to read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” mere months ago. My mother and father nervously stood before us, the feet between them speaking louder than the tense lack of words.

Her face was tear-stained and his was an unreadable mask. As my younger brother cried, melting in despair over what it all meant, I was in too much shock to do anything but stare — stare at the wall, at the carpet, at the green polo my father was wearing.

A few hours later I was upstairs sobbing into his chest, soaking his shirt with equal parts tears and snot. Denial, the initial response when your world crashes down, wrapped me in its clutches and held me prisoner. To witness my childhood hero crying on his knees while he held me, his tears wetting my hair to my face, was devastating and terrifying at the same time. It shook my world.

That was 11 years ago.

The years following the divorce were unstable and uncertain. I grew up thinking my family was damaged somehow, as I was the only one of my friends who had two houses to visit.

I learned what to say and what to repress in order to preserve my parents’ feelings. Of course I didn’t like moving in with our grandparents — an ancient house ravaged by mangy barn cats, quilting tools and statues of Mary — but mom needed the financial support. Once a stay-at-home mother, she became a workaholic, taking on miscellaneous home hospice jobs all hours of the day and night to put food on the table.

We left one school district and merged into another, helped dad move from an apartment to a new house one state over and welcomed his new wife to our family. Addresses and phone numbers rapidly changed at a pace difficult for a preteen to memorize, and accepting a new mother-like figure was far from simple.

You could say I was overwhelmed by it all.

Through middle and high school, I felt like a constantly packed suitcase without a home, shuffling back and forth from one parent to the other with no control over my own life. Don’t get me wrong, I had multiple places to live. But none of them felt like the home you yearn for after a long trip away.

That secure and peaceful place was not a physical one for me; it existed in pre-divorce memories — of the garage door grinding open, the beep of a locking car, the creak of the front door swinging open and of my suit-and-tie-clad father after a 10-hour workday greeting mom with a gentle kiss and touch on her hip before hollering out in a mock-serious tone, “Where are my kids?” to which we would exuberantly come scampering in for a hug.

I can hear the chiming wooden grandfather clock in the foyer of the last house where we were all happy together; I can picture the worn black leather briefcase dad always carried and the carefree way mom would spoon-feed us grapefruit as we watched television.

These memories were mine to treasure.

I reached deep within me for them when I heard nasty rumors speculating dad had an affair or when mom would furiously sling finely crafted curse words at him in front of me, placing me in the war zone and indirectly asking me to take a side.

I wasn’t angry about the situation; that was my brother’s primary response. It simply wasn’t in my nature to lash out. But there was a debilitating war raging inside me that I couldn’t make sense of. Struggling with depression, I was forced by my parents to go to counseling and try medication, both of which felt like an insult to my coping abilities.

Born with a strong introverted nature, I internalized every facet of the divorce. It became my fault — if I had been a better daughter, maybe my parents would have fought harder to stay together. It sounds ridiculous, but overanalyzing the unrelated puzzle pieces slowly chipped away at me. It became my mission to strive for perfection, to make their tired hearts swell with pride.

I graduated with the titles of valedictorian, Homecoming Queen and Prom Queen — so I was off to a good start.

Like the seasons come and go, so too did a range of emotions I sorted out over the years. At the same time I left for college, packing my bags and bidding mom farewell, my dad also moved to Florida for a new job.

Then it happened — the string of unfortunate events.

Dad had a serious cancer scare, and mom had a stroke. I came face-to-face with the unsettling realization that my parents were aging and wouldn’t always be around, something I had simply taken for granted all these years. The looming hand of death had never felt so close, and for the first time in my life, I contemplated what my parents meant to me. Not just who they were, what they had accomplished in life or what they could offer me. I’m talking about what they represented in my life, the magnitude of their actions as parents and how I wouldn’t be alive if not for that life-altering choice made 21 years ago.

I look at society and see a world of ungrateful youth that don’t think twice about how they got where they are today. Sure, you contributed a helping hand when asked, but until you’ve simultaneously filled the roles of mentor, disciplinarian, tutor, coach, provider and lifeguard, you haven’t a clue what it means to be a loving parent.

Divorces are messy. There’s no getting around that. But if I look back at what happened through the objective lens of maturity — not from my own emotional memories — I realize just how much strain was on my parents at the time. My expectations were unfair; after all, they’re only human.

When I think of raising children, one word comes to mind first: work. But I can hear my mother’s voice in my head now — “my kids are the greatest pride and joy I have in life.”

It was my mother who sat in the bathtub with me, our hands as wrinkled as prunes, teaching me to read my first book; it was my father firmly grasping my shoulder as I removed the training wheels from my bike; it was my parents whose constant stream of compliments motivated me to pursue writing first as a hobby and now as a career.

I often consider the tragedy of divorce and how it plagues so many undeserving families every day. But when I reminisce on my own family’s struggle, I don’t dwell on the ugly memories. Instead, I think of who I’d be today if the divorce had never happened — and I don’t like who I see.

Instead of being my former people-pleasing self, I’ve learned how to — heaven forbid — say “no.” If not for the hours I spent alone in my room wondering why God allows bad things to happen, I wouldn’t have learned how to recognize often-overlooked blessings in disguise.

If one thing is true of my life, it’s this — arrows can only be launched forward by first being pulled backward. Every agonizing circumstance I thought was dragging me down was, in hindsight, essential for my forward launch into a more meaningful life.

C.S. Lewis once said, “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.” Though I don’t disagree, I’d like to make a small addition.

Parents often prepare their children for extraordinary destinies.

And though mine are far from perfect, I strive to someday be half the parents mine were to me.

Samantha Rhodes is a third-year communication major and the Managing Editor for The Independent Collegian.

For advice on how to handle divorce, read these tips.