Information Related to "Hope & Help for Children of Divorce"
| Audio/Video |
My life was going to be forever changed, that much I could understand.
I knew Mom and Dad were not getting along very well, because sometimes
at night, through my bedroom wall, I could hear the sounds of arguing,
then crying. But as of tonight our family would never be the same again.
A man waited in a car across the street, and when Dad got home the
man gave him some papers. In less time than it takes to watch a TV
sitcom, it was over. Dad packed a few things, got in his car and left.
Our family of four was no more.
Divorce was a word that sounded like a bomb exploding. This was the early 1970s, and while more and more families around us were being torn apart by divorce, it had always seemed like such a remote thing. I'd heard about it, and I knew families who had gone through it, but divorce was not something that I ever imagined would touch me or my family.
But on that blackest of all nights, it did. I couldn't fathom what the future would be like, but I knew without a doubt that the rest of my life would be very different from my first 11 years.
Over the years I've likened the destruction of my family to standing on a beach with a double-fisted handful of very fine, very dry, very special sand. It has substance, but it isn't solid—it isn't anything you can really hang onto.
No matter how hard you try to squeeze and hold on to it, with every beat of your heart more of it sifts through the small gaps between your fingers and falls to the ground. You can't catch what is falling without dropping more, and you could never ever gather every grain of your special handful of sand and hold it all together again. In no time, most of it is gone and all you have left in your hands is an empty space.
Related Information on UCG Sites:
Table of Contents that includes "Hope & Help for Children of Divorce"
Divorce: