The D Word

Nuggets,

Divorce is one of the ugliest words in the world. It is hideous, gruesome, devastating. It has a thousand different horrible life lessons about hurt and abandonment and you're-not-good-enough (or I'm-not-good-enough) realities. It's a word that destroys everything in its path. It leaves no joy, no excitement, no happiness. Sure, some people pretend like life is all beautiful in the midst of its journey, but pretending is a powerful tool. It helps us to cope. It's called denial, and it ain't just a river in Egypt.

The conversation turned to this awful word yesterday, when you popped up from your book. You were talking about Julie and Nancy, best friends who were being separated because Julie's parents were divorced and now Julie was moving away. (side note: I love how you dive in to books and speak of the characters like they are real people. I love how passionate you become about their feelings, issues, hurts, and joys. I love your imagination.) You asked me if Daddy and I would ever get divorced, and then you talked about how much that would hurt.

I think it's naive for grown ups to promise their children that they will never get divorced. I can't magically view the future, or speak to the actions of another person (though I have the utmost belief that it won't happen), when I am only responsible for my own. I can't promise that something hideous and ugly will never occur in the course of our lives. But I can say what has already happened, what we've already walked through, and survived. I can say that I believe in the power of healing and hope and restoration. I can say that Daddy and I have walked through the shadow of the valley of death, the most hideous of marital hurts, fought it, and lived through it. I can say that we love each other more now, than we did then. Crazy thought, isn't it?

I can say that Love is hard. Not because of the other person, but because of myself. It is hard to give of myself, expecting nothing in return, and bearing no resentments. It is hard to put the wants and needs of another person ahead of my own. It is hard to trust that they are doing the same for me. It is hard to expose the weaknesses in myself, talk about them, and to burn out the dross of my soul. It is tough to see how selfish and evil I really am, while I do my absolute best to love your Daddy. Love is a mirror. It's the clearest way to see who I really am, and not who I pretend to be. Love forced me to experience my sinful-self-denial and do something about it. Otherwise I don't really love.

I can say that I bear the scars of a set of divorced parents. Daddy does too. I can say that as young as I was, I was harmed. I can say that the lesson of the option to abandon Love has permanently changed the way I view it. I can say that as hard as I work to trust in and believe, am vulnerable and fragile with your Daddy, a deep dark part of my heart fears that he will one day decide that I'm not worth it anymore and abandon me. I know that Daddy experiences this same fear. We carry this weight, often times unaware, and we work to superglue-cement our feet in place, to be resolute in not having the option of abandonment. We work hard to show ourselves, and each other, that come what may, we are here for good.

I hope you never learn that Love can be abandoned, or that it comes with strings attached. I hope you grow up and understand that Love is about what you can give, and not what you get. I hope you always have the safety and comfort that your Daddy and I are as stubborn as hell, and we're not going to quit on each other. I hope that you will never forget to pray for us to always feel this way. I hope you will grow up to have this exact same reality in your own marriages: feet cemented, super glued, duct taped, wrapped up in seran wrap, welded together, and attached for good.