I promised something and am late delivering but life is busy and I also could not see how to dilute or shorten Jennifer’s speech. It was just too perfect. So I will start by sharing her memory of first learning of her parents separation at a dreaded family meeting. I feel so fortunate that my family meetings growing up were always around where we were moving to next- not always easy- but nothing like the family meetings I have had to have with my children. Or the hard one in this post written by the grown woman from her memory at 10, which was around the time I met her
“When I was 10, a new family moved in across the street. The family had a daughter; a girl my exact age. I don’t remember this girl’s name because we never really became friends, and we didn’t go to the same school but, when her family first moved in, we spent a few days meeting after school to cycle around the cul de sac on which we lived.
It was after one such session of this after school cycling routine that I remember coming into the house, and heading to my room (shocking, I’m sure, to learn that I was an introvert and spent a lot of time in my room as a child). My dad popped his head into my room. “Jennifer: we’re going to have a family meeting in a few minutes — come to the TV room.”
My reaction to this, I remember, was one of frustration. My family was exactly three people and one rabbit large, so whatever it was we were meeting about, everyone but me and my rabbit probably already knew, and the rabbit showed a shocking lack of interest in our family business.
I showed up in the family room, and immediately I knew something was wrong. All the cliché things happened: I suddenly felt cold. I started to sweat. My mouth tasted like metal. My heart pounded. I was sitting on the couch, and I remember my mom sat next to me, although somehow she seemed really far away. My dad sat opposite us, in a rocking chair that he kept completely still.
My dad was the first one to talk, though I don’t remember much of what he said. It was obvious he had rehearsed in his mind what he was saying; his words had a kind of eerie and detached quality to them that made it feel as though he was speaking really, really slowly. I think he opened with something like, “Sometimes people fall out of love,” but I can’t honestly remember. The one thing I do recall clearly, and I suspect I remember it because I found it comforting, at the time, was that my dad kept saying over and over again in different permutations that he and my mom were not angry at each other. They just didn’t love each other anymore. But they weren’t angry. No one was angry.
When my dad seemed finished, there was a long pause. And then my mom started talking; she described how she and I would stay in the house together, and how the cleaning lady wasn’t going to come anymore but it would be good to learn to do the housework ourselves. Of course, at the time I had no idea how right she was about that — I know now.
Then, eventually, as some sort of closure to the conversation, I guess, my mom timidly handed me a little wrapped box. Opening a present at that particular moment was odd, but I did it, and inside was jewelry; a gold loop necklace meant to hold charms – like a charm bracelet for your neck.
I was at first mystified by this whole gift phase of the family meeting. There are certain conventions, right, when you open a gift? Act excited and surprised… be thrilled and then gracious. At that moment, however, I could or would not muster any of those emotions. At that moment I was really confused, and – increasingly with each passing moment – really angry. What on earth are we celebrating, I thought? Are you seriously giving me a present to commemorate your DIVORCE? Are you insane?
I am well aware that there are lots of divorce stories filled with incalculably greater tragedy than mine is. I got a gift, after all – other kids should be so lucky. But, I trust you can sympathize with my incredulity at receiving the necklace. Eventually, alone in my room later that night, I tried to break the little gold loop meant to hold the charms, but I didn’t have the heart to try hard enough to actually succeed. I settled on stuffing the gold chain in a drawer and tried to forget about it.
Of course, with some hindsight, I understand exactly what my mom was trying to do, and yes – it was my mom, I’m certain, who orchestrated the necklace gift. I love jewelry; if you know me, you that about me. I come by the obsession honestly, as my mom loves it, too. And on that ugly day in June, in a room she knew would be filled with sadness and ugliness, my mom was trying to ensure there would be something beautiful for me, something that I could love. Rather than associating the necklace with my parents’ divorce, my mom wanted me to do the opposite – she wanted that moment to have something in it that would remind me that the world, and all its treasures, persist always, even on the darkest days. I regret getting the message pretty late, but at least I got it.”