“Dad, tell me about the divorce,” I said, dipping my legs into the cool pool water. Dad stopped in the middle of a lap, panting as he met my gaze.
“What do you want to know?”
“What did Mom do wrong? What made you guys so unhappy?”
As the youngest, I was the only one in my family who had no recollection of the divorce. But every time I pieced the narrative together in my mind, I found someone to blame for the disaster that occurred. One day it was my brother. Some days it was my dad. Other days it was my mom. Each story was as vague as the next. But every time I tried to formulate the story, I had to find someone to blame.
“Julie,” my dad said seriously, “I have my regrets from the divorce. If I could go back, I would handle things very differently. Your mother was a wonderful woman. I will never forget the constant shower of support that she was to me when I was a bishop. We just went through a rough patch and didn’t know how to escape it.”
As I sat down to read that night, I thought about how there’s not a clear-cut villain in every story. And in spite of my morals and beliefs, I wasn’t the hero I had always dreamed of being. Nobody fits the framework of the hero who does everything right or the villain who is unquestionably evil.
Was the divorce no one’s fault? Was it everyone’s fault? Both?
“What do you want to know?”
“What did Mom do wrong? What made you guys so unhappy?”
As the youngest, I was the only one in my family who had no recollection of the divorce. But every time I pieced the narrative together in my mind, I found someone to blame for the disaster that occurred. One day it was my brother. Some days it was my dad. Other days it was my mom. Each story was as vague as the next. But every time I tried to formulate the story, I had to find someone to blame.
“Julie,” my dad said seriously, “I have my regrets from the divorce. If I could go back, I would handle things very differently. Your mother was a wonderful woman. I will never forget the constant shower of support that she was to me when I was a bishop. We just went through a rough patch and didn’t know how to escape it.”
As I sat down to read that night, I thought about how there’s not a clear-cut villain in every story. And in spite of my morals and beliefs, I wasn’t the hero I had always dreamed of being. Nobody fits the framework of the hero who does everything right or the villain who is unquestionably evil.
Was the divorce no one’s fault? Was it everyone’s fault? Both?
I liked the personal experience to explain why you were thinking about whether or not their is a clear-cut villain in every story. It was a little didactic at the end, but not in a bad way I don't think.
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