
When I visit the concept of divorce through my four year old self, I understand why God frowns upon it so. In divorce the parents don't just become single, the children become single too. I have gotten over so many disappointments in my nearly 50 year old life, one thing this old-little girl has never fully gotten over is becoming single at the age of four.
I feel divorce is hardest on children because the child does not have a choice; divorce is something that happens to them. And what I think many fail to realize is the child becomes single while still being intensely in love with both parents. On the other hand, parents become divorced and likely are no longer in love. So the separation makes logical sense to only two of the parties involved.
When I was four or five I used to pray that the Genie in the bottle would grant me three wishes. Oh how I willed that Genie to be real and her bottle to be true. At least be true for my one wish, that my parents would not be divorced.
Divorce, that ugly word, is such a formidable concept. It is painful, lonely, embarrassing, isolating, powerless, angry, scary, and loathsome. It is also common, ordinary, random, and selfish except in cases of safety/serenity. I actually wonder, might there be far fewer divorces if parents had to formally enter into a CAUSING MY CHILD TO BE SINGLE agreement during the process and sign those papers in front of their children. They would also have to listen to old-young fifty year olds tell their life story of growing up single.
I want to leave you with this and I think we will all agree. Divorce has no winners.
THE PARENT: The leaving happened slowly, gradually, as these things do, and before we knew it, we were lost to each other, as if a magician had whisked a cloth off the table, leaving the dishes there, jolted. And when we looked back it was all a
blur, time on fast forward, hurtling to an inevitable conclusion. –Kathryn
Stern, Another Song About the King
THE CHILD: There is no such thing as a "broken family." Family is family, and is not
determined by marriage certificates, divorce papers, and adoption documents.
Families are made in the heart. The only time family becomes null is when those
ties in the heart are cut. If you cut those ties, those people are not your
family. If you make those ties, those people are your family. And if you hate
those ties, those people will still be your family because whatever you hate
will always be with you. C. JoyBell C.
THIS CHILD: I wish my family had a do over. I wish that Genie in the bottle were real, but because it isn't, I will do my awesome best to PAY IT FORWARD. Me and mine will do our awesome best to break that yoke my history bears.