After my parents divorced, I feared a long winter. But the storm never came.
When some people hear the word divorce, they think of a thunderstorm. Parents’ voices raised in anger. Kids cowering in the background as they listen to the booms grow louder and watch the lightning flash.
But this wasn’t the case for my parents. For me, the divorce was a snowstorm: falling so quietly and lightly that the reality of what had happened melted before I started to pay attention. The signs were there. In my flowering innocence, my five-year-old self just never considered them.
* * *
I squinted at the laptop, its harsh white light illuminating the dark room. I barely heard the rhythmic breathing of my sleeping roommate as I read from my paper:
Paul R. Amato . . . reasoned that because children witness their parents’ divorce, they are more vulnerable to traits that will interfere with marriage, such as poor communication skills and the hesitancy to take on the lifelong commitment of being with another person.
I had started my paper with the intention of producing a convincing argument about the resilience of children with divorced parents. While there was some evidence, it was far outweighed by the evidence about the emotional scars that these children carry.
In the darkness that almost felt palpable, in the blatant academic light cast from the computer, I was no longer a human being with her own agency. I was just another statistic.
Was divorce a hereditary disease that was just passed down through the generations? My grandma . . . my mom . . . my sister . . . was I just destined to be the next one?
Was trying to keep a marriage together like holding a melting ice cube in your hands? Despite your best efforts to keep it whole and steady, the water pools and drips through your helpless fingers onto the floor?
* * *
I was never that angry about the divorce. Deep in my heart I knew my parents weren’t going to get back together, and I didn’t necessarily want them to.
As I grew up, entering junior high and then high school, my dad and stepmom’s visits become less frequent, shifting from every couple of weeks to once a month. A shadow of loneliness started trailing me.
But in that autumn of my life, I clung to memories of springtime that played soothing melodies in my mind. Scripture study with my dad and stepmom each night. Going to cute cafes with my mom and eating sugar cookies iced with pink frosting. Remembering summer nights watching meteors streak across the sky, laughing with my dad over some funny story from his sports broadcasting days. Even as wind tore the quivering leaves from the trees, my parents were there for me.
No, I wasn’t angry. But, like the autumn leaves, I was lost and shaken. Growing up in a life where I believed rules were firm, clear-cut, and irrefutable, I wanted a list of do’s and don’ts. I wanted someone to hand me a list titled in bold, “Here are the ten things to do to ensure that you’ll never fail in life!,” or a pamphlet that proclaimed, “Surefire techniques for preventing divorce!”
Maybe my obsession with rules would’ve stayed if one of my parents had ignored the unspoken rules of marriage and wordlessly walked away. But as it was, neither of them were bad people. They were both faithful and religious.
* * *
My mom has blossomed ever since that snowstorm.
Growing up, every time I had a friend over at my house, they would gush to me the next day, “Your mom is so cool!” And they were right.
She is the kind of person who invites you over for Sunday dinner and doesn’t let you leave until you’ve agreed to take a box of cookies and at least one gift—pot holders, a new decoration to brighten your home, or an extra two or three bags of sweets. She uncomplainingly does twelve-hour shifts as a CNA at the hospital because caring for people is all she’s ever known. Her cozy apartment apartment is stuffed with comfy couches, cheerful lamps, and toys for the grandchildren.
Because that’s what’s important to her. Spending time with family.
My dad is the kind of person who can strike up a conversation with anybody. Whether it’s through inviting you to a party complete with sports and wings, asking you about how your son that you’ve only mentioned once is doing, or buying you a hot meal, he will make you feel loved in a heartbeat. I’ve lost track of how many times he’s called me under the guise of managing my fantasy football team—then spent an hour asking how my life is going.
He has grown strong roots that have kept him firm in faith and hope since the divorce. In the spring that followed the divorce, the flowers of love he cultivated choked any weeds of bitterness or anger that threatened to grow.
One day during high school I was sitting at my dad’s pool, watching him do laps. “Dad,” I asked, “What did you guys do wrong? What made you so unhappy?”
My dad stopped swimming and gave me a serious look. “Julie,” he said, “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.”
Part of me had wanted to believe that one of my parents made a mistake that I could easily learn from and simply avoid. To a girl who grew up casting people into categories of good or bad, who grew up believing that following rules and beliefs protected you, his words were a revelation to me.
That was when I realized that the divorce was no one’s fault. Just two good people who went through a rough patch.
My Latter-day Saint faith wasn’t a complete how-to book for living a perfect, trial-free life. It hadn’t protected my parents from that wintry night. It gave me great guidelines, yes, but ultimately life was imperfect.
* * *
I met my husband much sooner than I anticipated.
I talked to him about communication. About managing our finances. I wanted our future marriage to be the best it could be. And suddenly I was that girl in high school again who wanted to believe in the infallible power of gospel standards that would protect us from any marital strain.
There were no guarantees. Nonetheless, I clung to my belief in those gospel guidelines like a lifeline because witnessing the snowstorm of my parents’ divorce made me never want to enter a storm again without being properly equipped.
It was a risk, no doubt about it. According to my research, I was just another statistic, right? Just another one of those kids of divorced parents who was destined to be disillusioned about love or get divorced themselves. But as I looked back on the happiest day of my life—the warm summer day that went by in a blur of coral flowers, mint-green cake, and hugs from friends and family alike—I knew I wasn’t going to be another statistic. No, if anything, my love for my husband was strengthened by my resolve to overcome the odds:
“For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings / That then I scorn to change my state with kings” (Shakespeare, Sonnet 29).
Photo of autumn: Pixabay, courtesy of Valiphotos.
Photo of spring: Unsplash, courtesy of Anthony Delanoix.
Photo of spring: Unsplash, courtesy of Anthony Delanoix.
Photo of summer flowers: Pixabay, courtesy of Mouse23.
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