By this point, I was already feeling emotionally empty. Sure, I would focus on the now which gave me the opportunity to find happiness. But when I got home from work, I'd sit at my computer and just get lost into the ether of the Internet. I couldn't handle what I was feeling. All I knew was that I was lost and everything was spinning out of control.
I was at work on my birthday when this next part took place. I had called my parents earlier because they were driving to where I lived for a cousin's wedding. They were also coming to pick up the car I'd been using for the past year. The financial burden of having that car had become too much so I had decided to give it to my sister.
I called my parents again during lunch and was told that they were a little busy and could they call me later. So I said sure and waited for the rest of the work day for a phone call. When I hadn't heard from them in four hours, I decided to call and see how they were doing.
My mother answered the phone in a tone that made it clear something was wrong. I asked why hoping to find out the cause of her pain. Yet I was unprepared for her answer to my question.
My parents were getting divorced.
I was so completely stunned. I had no idea anything was wrong between them. They had kept much of the substance of their relationship a secret. And I accepted that. They, as adults, always had a right to their privacy. Even as an adult now, it was still none of my business how they chose to interact with each other and what they meant to each other beyond the titles of husband and wife. It was by mere biological coincidence that my relationship to them was tied.
When I first found out, my mind was swimming with questions about why and how. I called my father briefly to express support but I was still in shock and gave a premature gesture of such before I was truly ready. When I understood more fully the gravity of the situation, I couldn't talk to him; causing only more pain for him and even for my mother.
It took a few days to piece together the whole story of my dad had been cheating on my mom for nearly thirty years and that my mom had found out not once but twice now that he was doing so. This was evidently the straw that broke the camel's back.
For a child, even as an adult now, I was facing for the first time the reality of both my parents. I had long ago accepted them as human as me, as any little child does when they are growing up. But for so long they had acted as mere ideas and mere outlines of people. They'd gone to high school, went to college, my dad went on a mission, they get married at a young age and had kids right away. They then spent the rest of their years working to provide for the family (Dad) and raising the kids (Mom).
I admit it's my fault for not trying to understand them better. So this first major slap in the face brought about so much anger from me concerning my dad's own indiscretions. His own betrayal of his faith. Sure, I had long since stopped believing, but he seemed to have not.
I never felt like a lost a father when I found out his cheating past, a very recent past indeed. I felt like I had never really known my father and I was left to wonder just who was this man that had voluntarily shared his genetic code with me and participated in raising me for so long.
My siblings and I hated him for a long time. Our forgiveness was eventually given but with the understanding that trust had been violated and could not be given again. What was lost was forever lost. But even with all that, I didn't know what to say or do. My siblings saw the world in a stark religious duality of good vs. evil. While I? Well, I just had questions and saw only a man that I didn't really know and wanted to know. Why had he done this? Why had he married my mom? Was there actually anything wrong with him? What was his relationship with my mom like over the years? Did they communicate as well as they supposedly should have? Or had they been around each other for so long that they stopped seeing each other?
The threat of divorce turned into one born of anger to one born of a need to reexamine their relationship. My father went into counseling for the next year. He and my mother stayed married during that time. I never really knew what to say.
My mother called me yesterday to tell me that she and my father are getting a divorce. In a year's time, I realize I still don't know what to say. I only know that the people I know as my parents are changing. That the substance of their lives still remain a mystery to me; one that if they were willing to open up a little on, I would listen and ask questions concerning those things.
I love both of my parents despite the terrible road that we have crossed this past decade. They have provided for so much in my life, raised me, and cared for me.
So it is in that vein of love for them that I am left with questions. Who is my father? And who is my mother? Who are they as people?
I am ultimately left with the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and realization that not all of those pieces are there. I wonder if my siblings know the story more? Are they equipped to handle what's happening?
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