In my English class I had to write a memoir. I choose to revisit a painful time in my life and process through it. I think it turned out to be a much needed assignment and I'm thankful to have completed it. I've pasted it below, just to share a little of my story with some friends.
Weapon of Choice
The metal on the weight bench was rusting and the leather bench tearing at the corners. My father sat uncomfortably poised on the ripping mustard brown bench, waiting for the words to spill forth from his breaking heart. At that moment, I had no idea that what I knew of life would change forever. I didn’t know that my heart also hung in the balance, alongside my fathers. My two sisters and I sat on the floor expectantly waiting to hear what our dad would say; the way kids sit around listening to stories from their favorite books. We had no idea the weight of what we would hear; no disclaimer for the hurt we were sure to feel. It was at that moment my father spoke, “it’s not your fault, it’s all mine, but your mother and I are getting divorced. I love you guys so much and we’re going to make it through this, we’re going to make it work.” For the first time in my life, tears streamed down my father’s face, he didn’t appear strong. My reaction became something that defined me in crisis, I laughed. I remember uncomfortably laughing while my sister and father cried, holding each other. Even now, this image haunts me, the wall I didn’t know I built, to protect myself from the coming hurt.
Every detail of that day is painted more vivid than any other. I’ve travelled to galleries around the world, seen the wondrous landscapes of God’s creation, and still nothing is more vivid than my memories of that day. While I was laughing, I had no idea the impact my parent’s divorce would have on my life. There were no stains from the world yet, no wisdom witnessed from the folly of others. It was a bleak, grey-skied day in our small mostly unfurnished apartment. My dad had already been living in his own place and we stayed on the weekends but our innocence kept us from the truth. During those years my dad spent his working hours watering a golf course across the state of Michigan. Watering golf courses takes place in the overnight hours and so our parents had us convinced he needed to be closer to the course. Our intuition didn’t tell us otherwise. In fact, we loved him having his own place because unlike ours it had a swimming pool and playground. These minor details wouldn’t be pinned together until many years later. At that moment all I knew was for the first time, I had seen the strength rush out of my father faster than the stream behind my house and it made me uneasy, uneasy to the point of laughter.
The events of the day seemed to happen to someone else; it was as if I was an on-looker. Watching the hurt pour out and the uncertainty pour in, from outside of myself. To be honest, I wasn’t bothered by the news but by my dad’s hurt. My incomplete knowledge of divorce and the effects it would have saved me from any instant pain. It wasn’t like falling off a bicycle but more like aging, a slow and steady wound. In the aging process, human bodies deteriorate and the strength of my heart would soon also deteriorate. Later in the afternoon, my mom picked us up and drove us the ten minutes back north to our home. It wasn’t unlike any other weekend in the previous year, except for the hurt that streamed from both of my parents. As vivid as the interaction with my father was in my mind, I have no recollection of how my mom responded. Like a blank chalkboard where the chalk sits without writing, I have no memory of her emotional state. It seems the emotion that I witnessed pouring out of my father and my unnerving response overshadowed everything else.
My father played football in high school and was star player that one could find plastered in the world of teenage television. He is over six feet tall and walks with almost a stomp. I remember one Christmas when I got a blow up field goal post and football so I could be just like him. His strength showed up for me, and rubbed off on me. The way my son looks to me with eyes seeking approval, I know I once looked at my dad. I didn’t know that witnessing the fall of my dad’s strength would cut down on my own strength. I wasn’t aware that masculinity bestowed masculinity. If I would’ve known, I don’t think I would’ve been laughing when I witnessed my father’s vulnerable weakness displayed through tears of a failed marriage.
In class the next day, my parent’s divorce became a story I could tell my friends. In fact, it made me relatable to a few more people and it didn’t take me long to begin testing the perks. As any child of divorce can admit in their adulthood, manipulation is birthed from the separation and lack of unity divorce brings to a family. Very quickly, my sisters and I could pin one parent against the other to get anything we wanted. At first material possessions or sleepovers or trips would fill the void and the separation seemed unnoticeable. Instead of mending the wound, the fillers seemed to split the gash farther and the hurt began to sink in. My parents were committed to making divorce work for our family; they had promised to make it work. There was a hope inside my heart so big; it could see value in every little exchange. When they greeted each other with smiles and friendly conversation, my heart knew they would get back together. I knew that one day everything would go back to how it was; my hope was fueled from a lack of understanding. Time had an evil grip and days began to move against us. After so many kind exchanges and hopeful actions, still they didn’t reconcile. All the while attacks built against the hope of my heart and my belief shriveled. The hope that held my wound from further tearing began to fade and my wound began to ooze.
Anger began to grow inside me, screaming and begging to escape. While I heard it whispering often, desperate to make its appearance, I was able to suppress it. I was convinced that I could silence the emotions and move on. I had to be strong because my father could no longer be strong enough for us both. My relationships changed dramatically, I was eager to please everyone and a slave to my friendships. They were the place where I drew consistency, the place where I was able to relate. The only place I could escape my hurt. Years and years would pass; I grew further and further from my father, knowing he couldn’t provide for me. I was on my own and I knew it. The allure and praise of success called to me like a beautiful woman, promising to set me free from hurt. Like a bee to honey, I followed that desire for my own success and began a new journey in my own strength.
The quest for success was to prove that my strength was enough and even though my father hadn’t been able to show up, I could do it on my own. Success began to numb the pain, as if using the best narcotics I couldn’t feel the hurt. I craved my own success like an addict, and an addict I had become. Anything and everything that promised comfort and peace I clung to like a child. Still on every morning, my hurt would call out from within, my peace was non-existent. I had been deceived. My relationship with my parents seemed typical; I lived with my mom and spent time with my dad on the weekends. The problem was since I had committed to only trust myself I didn’t have a meaningful relationship with my dad or really anyone. After all the years before the divorce where he had offered his strength to me, the one time he didn’t I couldn’t forgive him. If he couldn’t protect me from that hurt, who could? I was convinced that I was the only reliable source of strength and hope for healing.
On the first day of my high school psychology class the teacher said “after this class you’ll know exactly why you make decisions and how you rationalize them”. No later than the end of chapter one, I knew I had been rationalizing the gap created between my father and myself. I had every reason not to trust him and to desire nothing more than to end up the complete opposite. Eight years of distance, put my dad and me on separate planets. Everything he loved, I had begun to hate and choose the alternative. I had no desire to be like him. Bitterness wrapped so tight in my heart, he had been almost completely choked out. Like ivy on brick it separated the mortar. Years continued to pass and my success and determination continued to take me somewhere away from my hurt, or so I thought.
That’s the funny thing about wounds; sometimes not thinking about them makes them feel like they’re already healed. My wife has this habit of getting injured then waiting till the endorphins have made it numb and insisting it is healed, her stubbornness can make me crazy. But sometimes one realizes they are as crazy as they think someone else is. I had decided that since my heart had gone numb, I had successfully dealt with my hurt. A doctor would’ve told me that I am foolish and it will only cause more hurt in the end but I didn’t know any doctors. Eventually, the grace of God came upon me and brought with it the sorrow of my sin, the sorrow of my independence and distrust. All of my striving and success, the attempts to be my own savior, didn’t offer any healing. The quest was all a sham. I had become so good at rationalizing anything I wanted; I could escape ever dealing with the hurt I felt inside.
In the end, my relationship is still a work in progress, and I do believe divorce wounds are deep. I know that my sinister laugh, the laugh that echoes deep within the images of my memory, was the beginning of my quest for independence and self-reliance. The laugh was how I would respond to many wounds and the sword I would try to use in battle, like a shield to deflect the hurt. My weapon has changed and my hope has been restored, forgiveness flows from my broken heart. I thought that my dad lost his strength and had nothing to offer me, but it turns out that moment on the tattered bench was the moment he demonstrated the most strength to me. There was a strength that ran down his face in tears that I couldn’t understand until I had to access that same strength. Through brokenness I was offered strength and hope became the weapon that I fight with.
I’ll always remember the rusting metal on the weight bench and my littlest sister playing around the room, but I won’t let my hope be stolen any longer. My heart is being restored and my relationships redeemed.
