Marriage counseling. 27 years of marriage. 5 beautiful children. Marriage counseling?
We all saw it coming. I remember as a little kid wishing my parents would get divorced. The fighting would stop, my problems would subside, and my life would be calm. Now, all I can think about is how my life would undeniably change.
Who gets Christmas? Who gets Thanksgiving? Where will I stay for summer break? Where will I call home? When I get married, will they be able to stand in the same room without fighting? When I have kids, will they be able to know Grandma and Grandpa for the loving people they can be, or will they only see the hurt?
They say, “It was easier when five kids filled the house. Now that you all are gone, it’s tough. We need to learn to communicate again. We’ll see how it goes.” I knew that was coming. I sensed it. Mom would talk about her Book Club and Pokeno ladies’ divorces and mention that a child’s high school graduation was a common time to separate. I guess I didn’t realize she could be talking about herself.
Dad, apparently, has been begging for counseling for fifteen years. Mom, on the other hand, can’t open up. She refuses to go, unwilling to accept that maybe she needs help. In 18 years, I’ve seen my mother cry once. Once. She didn’t even cry at her father’s funeral. So many words have gone unspoken between the two. The past, she claims, is water under the bridge. Water? I see thousands of lives devastated by flooding in the Midwest. Sometimes water isn’t tepid. Sometimes it’s a storm.
