Mom and Dad’s marriage

I don’t remember my parents being married or acting like a married couple. But I didn’t understand they were divorced, either. No one told me, thinking I was too young to understand. One of the earliest memories I have, though, is of Dad sleeping downstairs in our family room. I was about five years old. I remember it well because I thought what great fun it must have been to sleep anywhere you wanted. They officially divorced when I was eight.

I didn’t fully understand that they were divorced or what divorce even meant for two legitimate reasons. First, I didn’t have any other divorced parents to compare to. None of my friends’ parents were divorced. Secondly, my Dad was always at the house. Dad came home from work every day and had dinner with us. After dinner, he would sit in his living room chair with the Hartford Times and do the crossword puzzle. Sometimes, he would come downstairs to the family room to watch TV with us all. Then, at 9 p.m., he would go home to his own place, about 15 minutes away.

Mom is the one who wanted the divorce. She was not happy, she would say to me years later. There was no talk between *Joe and Mom that they would leave their spouses to be together. So Joe stayed with his wife, and Mom stayed with Dad. For a few years, anyhow.

Like a lot of men back in the late 1960’s, Dad didn’t know how to cook or do his own laundry. He also didn’t really have friends. We were his world. So Mom was as gentle about it all as she could be and let him come and go as he pleased.

As I got older and understood life a little better, I realized that my mother didn’t have it easy with the neighborhood mothers after she and Dad divorced. It was stigma, and they were judgmental. Maybe they all suspected that I wasn’t my Dad’s child. Most of them shopped at *Joe’s market. Did they witness one of those kisses in the parking lot between them? Was there gossip? Was I actually a big secret drama in our community?

Regardless, there were a few moms who seemed cool and distant to Mom for no outward reason I could see, and in retrospect, they kept their husbands locked up and my mother at arm’s length.

Mom waited until her own father passed away before she filed for divorce. I think that was a deliberate decision. She knew her father would be disappointed in her, and she loved him deeply. Her mother was certainly disappointed in her, and she voiced that often for the rest of her life. I think Mom worked very hard to show people that we could still be a family. Dad still mowed the lawn. He still took us places. We still did things as a family. For whatever reason, it worked for everyone involved. It was when I was about nine that my older sister explained to me that they were divorced. Why my mother didn’t explain it to me, I don’t know. With the setup we had, it honestly made no difference to me. I didn’t realize how unusual the situation was, and I didn’t know any other way of life.

I finally realized it was weird when a friend slept over one Friday night when I was eight. We were playing in the living room, and Dad came over to me, rumpled my hair, and said goodnight. He then walked out the door.

My friend Jayme asked, “Where is your Daddy going?” Without missing a beat, I said, “To his house.”

She looked at me, confused. From the look on her face, I immediately realized it wasn’t typical for daddies to live somewhere else. That was the first time I felt really different from my friends.

The most important question I asked my mother after I found out was if Dad knew I wasn’t his biological daughter. It was more important to me than if Joe knew I was his, actually. She said Dad didn’t know.

Once I discovered I was not Dad’s, I racked my brain for situations or feelings where he treated me differently as I was growing up. But there just weren’t any. Dad and I were close. I tagged along with him everywhere. I feel sure he did not know. I was immensely relieved when Mom said that.

Dad never truly accepted the divorce and pined for Mom for the rest of his life, which is both sad and beautiful. He always referred to her as his wife in front of others. There was always a bond there.

Mom came up from Florida to see Dad during his last weeks of life in 2009. She still loved him, but it was just on a different level. One of the most touching things I witnessed was her feeding him in the nursing home when he was too weak to do it himself.

When you’ve shared a lifetime together, with five children, nine grandchildren, and one great-grandchild together, despite a divorce–there is a love there that never completely goes away. I feel grateful for witnessing that.

 

*pseudonym

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