Final Draft

When I was six years old my parents filed for divorce. I did not realize the effects that divorce would have on me throughout the different ages of my life as I do now. It was a beautiful summer day I still remember the sun shining and it just felt and seemed like a happy day. My parents told my sister and I that they were going to take us to Sabella Park, our local park right near our old condo in North Brunswick. They told us that they had to talk to us about something. I remember feeling excited my parents never made me feel like such an “adult” at the age of six as they did that day. I remember feeling so curious, what do they have to tell us? How come there making it so special for us? What could it possibly be, is it good or bad? I didn’t know but I couldn’t wait to find out.
They sat us down at the bleachers and told us that mommy and daddy weren’t going to live together anymore that daddy was going to live at grandma’s house for now on and we would stay with mommy at the condo. Immediately after they told us I said, “Okay let’s go play”, it seemed as if it did not bother me one bit. I remember feeling happy, which is strange to feel when your parents tell you there getting divorced. Although I guess I didn’t know what it truly meant to get divorced. I remember thinking okay that’s great it’s just going to be my mom, sister, and me. Hence, I loved to be just with my mom so I thought this was going to be great. Daddy would be living at my grandmas and I loved going to my grandmas so now it will be like having two houses.
My dad was eager to start up a new life, but I didn’t know that then, I’m telling you this now. He introduced me to his new girlfriend, Karen, about three weeks after my parents told me they were getting divorced. She was really nice and outgoing and the first time I met her she brought me white sunglasses, of course I liked her. Don’t we all know the saying “it so easy to buy a child’s love.” But of course I didn’t think that at the time. I thought daddy has a new girlfriend, she’s nice and bought me a present, I like her! It never came to my mind what about my mother, how is she feeling, didn’t daddy move on kind of fast, within weeks a new relationship? None of those thoughts ever entered my mind because I was a six year old child, at that age our minds don’t think that intensely. I also never asked my mother what was the reason her and my father got divorced because it did not matter to me at that time in my life. Therefore I went on and accepted this new woman that my dad brought into my life. A year later he married her and a year after that she was pregnant. My dad and Karen had my twin sisters, who I was thrilled about. I couldn’t wait to be an older sister.
Later on that year I seemed to development a feeling of abandonment. I didn’t know at the time but as I got older I realized why I acted in such ways. My mom would leave to go to the store or just to run errands and when she was gone I would sit in my room and worry about anything and everything. Is she ever going to come home? What if she never comes back? Is she safe, what if she got into a car accident? What if she got kidnapped? I would sit there and think about every possible negative thing that could happen to my mother, because I was so worried about her leaving my side and never coming back. Later on my mother told me that she talked to the psychiatrist and they explained what the reason was. They said I was so nervous about my mom abandoning me like my dad did. One minute my dad was living with us and everything was fine and the next his bags were packed and he was gone. Hence, the reason I worried that my mother would ever do the same.
To be honest I guess I didn’t want any adult figure leaving my side. I still remember sitting in my second grade class, which brings me to about seven and my teacher told the class , “ I’m going to run down the hall for a second, everyone stay in their seats , ill be right back”. Of course like any second grade class as soon as the teacher left the room, it filled with laughter, jokes and loud voices. Everyone in the class was thrilled that the teacher left us, everyone but me. I remember watching the teacher walk out the door and my body filled with a warm nervous sensation. I didn’t want her to leave and I didn’t trust being in the class with all those children and no teacher. I stared for a couple seconds until I could no longer see because my eyes were slowly filling up with tears. I was going to panic and I felt it. I remember thinking why did she leave us what if she doesn’t come back; we need the teacher in this classroom, were just children we can’t be here on our own. Slowly as the tears came the other students came around my desk simultaneously. What’s the matter Jaime, why are you crying? I remember saying, “I just want the teacher back in the room, where is she?” The teacher came walking back in the room a minute or two later, but it felt like hours to me. Immediately she walked over to me and had a look of sympathy all over her face. She whispered, “What’s the matter Jaime”. I remember telling her, “I got scared that you left and I thought you weren’t going to come back”. She assured me that she would never do that and she really had to use the bathroom, it was an emergency and she couldn’t hold it. Then she promised me she would never do that again and if ever she needed to leave she would get another teacher to wait in the room till she came back. I smiled and what I can guess is I was okay the rest of the day. Consequently I realized on the surface the divorce didn’t bother me but on an emotional level it affected me a lot as a child
It was only a matter of time till I became old enough to have that certain question pop in my head, “why did my parents get divorced?” At the age of twelve I decided to ask my mother what happened. I wasn’t prepared for the story I was told and it was probably the last thing I wanted to hear, but I’m glad now that I was told the truth. My father was a drug dealer he was selling cocaine and marijuana and not only that, he was getting high himself. Coincidently my mother’s father, my pop-pop Jack’s was a New Brunswick cop. My father was being watched for months until the night they raided the condo. I was only six, I remember walking out and seeing policemen in my living room I was told to go back in my room. My pop-pop Jacks partner was investigating my father but my pop-pop never put two and two together. They were watching a guy named “Al” and that was it. He didn’t realize it was my dad till that night that they called him and said, “Jack I’m at your daughter’s house and your grandkids are here, your daughters at work.” This is when my grandfather shockingly realized that the guy Al they were following and building a case on was his daughter’s husband.
They called my mother she had to leave work and sign a paper that agreed she had no idea about my father’s drugs or dealing. Otherwise my sister and I would have been taken away. My father did what I thought was the right thing. He went to rehab and my mother stuck by his side throughout that period. Eventually he got out and that is what caused the divorce. My father no longer could be high on drugs so he needed some other excitement in his life. So he decided to have an affair with, Karen, my step mom. I couldn’t believe what was being told to me. Karen, who I’ve known now for six years, is the lady my father cheated on my mother with. It was a lot to entail at the age of twelve from knowing nothing to everything. Although I never blamed my step mother because I figured she didn’t know and my dad probably didn’t tell her the whole truth anyway. I then despised my father as I do now. My mom didn’t want us to hate him, she would say he’s your dad and he does love you, you just have to accept him for the way he is and my mom would never say anything bad about him. Yet I couldn’t stop thinking, how could he cheat on my mother, especially after she stuck by his side through everything? She forced herself to forgive him and love him again for her children so they wouldn’t grow up in a divorced family. Yet what does he do as soon as he gets out, has an affair with the lady I acceptingly took into my life at age six. I despised him for awhile and just couldn’t really understand how anyone could ever be so cold and heartless; especially to the person I think the world of, my mother. I never understood it, because I would never have the heart to do that especially when there’s children involved.
At the age of twelve I also wonder how he was able to leave a family so suddenly just to start up a new one. Don’t get me wrong my sister and I were always welcomed at my dads’ house and went there almost every other weekend to see my dad, step mom and my sisters. Yet it still was missing two things, and that was MY mother and my father because I never got close to him and I never wanted too. I didn’t like the person he was and I especially didn’t like what he did. Thus, I never knew what divorce was at the age six, surprisingly it brought joy to my face the first time I heard it. Although time has passed and now when I think of divorce I have a completely different feeling. I feel that when two parents get divorced not only do they suffer, but the innocent children suffer as well.
As an adult I now realize that the divorce causes a lot of mixed feelings and emotions through all three ages. At the age of six the divorce did not bother me on the surface but it took a toll on me emotionally. At the age of twelve I despised my father and could not believe or accept what my father did to me mother. Now that I am older I still don’t agree with what my father did but in some way I do not feel how I did when I was twelve . I despise him and think it was wrong but I realized after he left my step mom and other sisters that maybe he doesn’t know how to be a father and he does the best he can. I still blame him one hundred and ten percent for the divorce and I don’t think anything good really comes out of it, except in this case, my mother divorcing that asshole because he never deserved her from day one. Thus I can say that in my divorced family as much as I would have liked to see my parents together, I am happy that my mother made the right choice and left him my father because she became my mother, father and best friend and that was better then anything my father could have given me as a person, and now that I am older, I know that.