My Mother, The Sun

I have a normal family.

Well, I had a normal family.

But I guess in today’s day and age about 43% of marriages end in divorce, which means maybe the broken mess I call my family is normal.

Maybe what I meant to say is I had a happy family.

We used to do happy family things like go to dinner and celebrate birthdays and support each other.

Now there’s just bitter silence.

And when the silence has ceased, then comes the fighting,

And the yelling,

And the brokenness.

Me, my brother, and my parents used to go on family vacations.

We used to spend long days on the beach where we’d soak up the sun for hours. We used to play games in the sand and put our chairs by the tide. We used to go out at night to hunt for crabs and capture them in the buckets to use to make sand castles.

No amount of conflict could ever break us apart, we’d always make up.

Always.

My mother is my favorite person.

She has a kind of glow about her that makes voice feel like soft velvet.

Her embrace is where I’d never have felt safer.

She is like the sun.

I don’t remember the day when she lost her glow, all I remember is that before I knew it, she was gone.

We stopped having fun after that.

I could never put my finger on why our family fell apart.

But it might have had something to do with the empty tubes of makeup my mom used to cover her bruises.

I love my parents very much.

I love rewatching their wedding video that’s saved on the family TV. 

Something about my mom’s beaming smile as my dad slides a shiny ring on her finger, and his small laugh of joy as the priest says “you may kiss your bride” brings me to tears.

But it seems to make me cry for a completely different reason these days.

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The day I came home from school to find my whole family sitting on the couch together, waiting for me with a nervous, somber expression on their faces is the day my own world crumbled. 

I knew what was coming before the word “divorce” ever came out of my father’s mouth, but even then my whole body went numb as soon as it did.

My whole childhood of happy and carefree memories seemed to mock me. I wanted to tell a younger me to cherish her time, to not take those precious moments for granted, as one day they would end.

I couldn’t fathom the idea that my family wouldn’t spend Christmas together, that we wouldn’t go to pick out our Christmas tree together and laugh as my dad struggled to put it on top of the car. How we wouldn’t put up our family ornaments together and all tense up as my little brother accidently drops and breaks another one.

I couldn’t imagine looking at the crowd at my sports games and seeing my parents sitting away from each other, at opposite ends of the bleachers trying to avoid eye contact.

How I would never hear the front door open late at night from my parents getting home late from date night.

My family was broken, but divorce meant it was really broken.

It’s something that just simply can’t happen.

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Me and my family never go to church anymore, 

But that Sunday after my world was shattered I made an appearance at our local baptist church.

I spoke to God and I asked him something.

I said, “God, I know we don’t talk much, or haven’t in a while,

But I need you to know that my parents are getting divorced and that can’t happen.

God, I can’t handle this, and it will break me.

I don't know if you take requests 

If you take wishes

But if I could have one wish

I wish for you to keep my parents together

I wish for my family to stay together

Please

Don’t let them get divorced.”

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I don’t know if I believe in coincidences, but after that day that I prayed to God, the divorce papers my dad signed went missing.

I don’t know much about legal processes, but somehow something always went wrong with the filing.

The waiting periods, the court date, all the signatures. No matter how much my mom tried, my selfish deal with God always prevented what I thought was inevitable.

Everyday when I woke up, my parents were still married.

I wondered how long God would allow this to go on.

I didn’t want to talk to him any more for fear of our deal expiring, and no matter how much it hurt my mom, my broken heart still wanted them to be together.

I thought maybe if my parents just stayed together they would work it out.

But maybe I was wrong.

Maybe some problems are too complex to fix.

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I regret it.

I regret my wish, I regret my selfish brokenness.

The yelling has started again.

I listen to my parents through our thin walls late at night.

I hear the horrible things he says to her,

I hear the sickening thuds.

I find the empty tubes of concealer in her trash.

I see her strength failing day by day.

I hear my little brother’s sobs behind his bedroom door.

Somehow my family is even more broken than before. 

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I got picked up from school early one day.

My dad’s eyes looked glassy and distant.

I didn’t ask any questions.

I already knew.

I knew she was gone.

I knew that it was my fault.

And I knew that I would never see her again.

It was my fault.

It is my fault.

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I feel her everyday.

But sometimes, when I can’t, I take out one of her old perfume bottles and spray it on my pillow.

So that maybe I can dream of her.

I can dream of her sun.

Of her warm embrace and soft eyes. 

God has punished me.

And because I couldn’t let her go,

I’ve lost her forever.