Ten years ago I received an amazing gift. A gift that came wrapped in a challenge. A challenge sheet that I signed without reading and which scared those around me and made them say and do funny things. All of them but my darling. She co-signed without a hint of hesitation, drew up battle plans, looked me in the eyes and said: "I'm in."
But first, she cried.
You know that awkward moment before you tell a good friend that you broke their favourite mug? How nothing that comes before it matters, as you rush the conversation towards confession, so you can breathe again… That's how it was, that night. Hug, hug… Kiss, kiss. "Let's go for a walk".
"So… It looks like the lump on my neck is going to be more than just a pain in the neck."
She was there every time the poison went into me. When the contents of my gut gushed out, again and again. She was there when I laid down on cold surfaces while professionals hid behind thick walls. She was there for the thumbs down and for the thumbs up from people in lab coats. She held my arm when the mere sight of a bright capital "H" over blue, weakened my knees. She ignored the counsel of those who told her she wasn't obligated to stay and witness the torture.
Back then I didn't ask "Why me?, I can't believe this is happening". Even then I didn't feel the desperation that I do now. I didn't wake up all alone in the middle of the night to ask questions without answers. Even then I didn't cry the tears that I do now, as if watching her wave goodbye in a shiny but condemned vessel.
I didn't cry for a son and his fight to cope with his new reality. I didn't have to struggle to accept his aggression, his short fuse, his fears… for reasons he himself can't even begin to comprehend, and which will surely impact the man he becomes.
I don't write these words to tug at your compassion. The thousands of innocent children who perish daily, for reasons you and I have never seen as anything more than a nuisance, won't let me manipulate you with my merely uncomfortable circumstances. I am not them, and that knowledge won't let me play the pity card.
I write to provide a glimpse into the reality of divorce, and the pain involved in what is, in most cases, a needless solution to a problem that isn't left behind in the aftermath. The devastation of ignoring a promise of "for better or worse" can be delayed, masked or cloaked. It can be medicated, or exchanged for a different kind of destruction of equal (or greater) value. But it cannot be expunged from the scales of joy which we work incessantly to swing in our favour.
I don't want to let my carefully written words create a false impression that I've got it under control. That because I am able to articulate my circumstances, that makes them manageable. They aren't manageable. There is a part of me that wants to kick against anything that I see as contributing to my misery. I want to tally my rights and wrongs (even if I might lose) against those who stand in opposition of what I know is decent and true. I want to come out ahead, collect my medal and shove it down their throats. In and of myself, there is anger and pain boiling over in a pot of self pity, on the stove of fear, inside the perfectly appointed kitchen of pride.
In and of myself… But it isn't just myself, thankfully.
There is a single thought that keeps that meal from being served. And that not my own. The truest thought I have ever come across, and how I want you to have it. How I want her to have it...
"Love never fails".
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