By Staff
My parents were married under an Israeli sun. Looking at pictures of the two of them, so young they almost seem like strangers, I wonder if – so close to the Mediterranean Sea – the air tasted like salt that day.
Their youth was obvious in their eyes – focused on what they were supposed to do and say and sign, my father in an odd looking, possibly tweed, suit jacket and my mother in a white wedding gown with lace sleeves and a wide smile. The pictures of my parents wedding remain a symbol now … so many years after their divorce. A symbol of a matter of fact. That some marriages work. And some don't. And a symbol of what is open to those who find themselves in the aftermath of a divorce and a separation of family.
Individuality is what springs from divorce. But as a child, it doesn't seem quite so poetic. Instead, that individuality is more of an inconvenience and a stigma. Life is lived on alternate weekends. Behavior warrants different punishment. And the comfort of one parent along with the other is never combined in any well balanced way again. I was young when my parents divorced. And the only information I have on unbroken homes is based on observation alone. But it seems to me the divide is deep and affecting between those who get their nurturing in one place and those of us who continue to live through two Thanksgiving dinners, two birthdays and two Hanukkahs (or Christmases) and must piece together the broken pieces of our homes.
Children of divorce become … adults of divorce. They can be a little more skeptical of relationships. Our parents are often viewed as two people: the people they were before the big 'D' and the people they've become after. We wonder, as we venture out with our own husbands and wives, girlfriends and boyfriends and fiancees – if there is an 'after' version of ourselves just waiting around the corner. We wonder if there is a detrimental shake up to be had – where nothing is ever the same again.
But here's the thing … it actually, kind of, can be. There is beauty in that which is different – but the same. Maybe they don't live in the same house, but my parents have been flashing those youthful smiles every so often. And they still laugh with us. There are new photos of them now. Ones of my father and stepmother smiling wide with arms around each other and of my mother and soon to be stepfather just the same. But behind all those, in a little black, wooden frame, is a small photo of my parents on their wedding day. Before the fights and the legalities and the separation. When they were young, uncertain of the future and hopeful. To remind me that there is the capacity for more than just one version of ourselves in the course of a lifetime.
And this weekend, my mother will get married again. And I'll preside over the ceremony. And as I try to figure out what to wear and how odd it will be to ask my mother if she takes another man to be her husband … I think about how happy she is now. I remember the days when she was, like my father, my brothers and myself – just a broken piece of what used to be a whole. It is a relief to see her now. A symbol that everything is just as it should be. My parents seem to be happy now … individually. And I realize that maybe the divorces of our parents – the breaking of our homes – do not have to end there.
Maybe there's a point to it all … as bad as it can be. Maybe the point is simple. Maybe it's to teach us that there are sweeter words to be heard, after the bitter ones have already fallen off the tongue. That what scares us most – to trust our hearts again – inevitably becomes less frightening if we just allow ourselves the chance to gain a new perspective. Maybe it's to inevitably show us that broken hearts … mend.
To give us all a little hope -when we're uncertain of the future.