Remember "The Parent Trap" (1998 Lindsay Lohan version, obviously)? Not only was it heartwarming and featured cute little Lindsay before she went crazy, but it was basically every child of divorced parents' dream.
My parents got married when they were my age (cue the internal screaming), and both had barely started to learn how to live on their own and care for themselves before moving to a new city and having to take care of each other. They were young, they were broke, and they were in puppy love. However, puppies grow up, and they discovered that marriage was a lot harder than they imagined it to be.
When I was almost 4 years old, my parents divorced. My mom and I packed up and moved into my grandparents' house, and my dad stayed at our former home. I didn't understand why my mom "sent my daddy away", and growing up my brother and I became accustomed to making the drive to Bonifay, Florida and meeting my dad at the McDonald's off the interstate every other weekend.
The aftermath of divorce on a child is never pretty, and I spent time at play therapy trying to sort out why my parents didn't want to be together anymore. I was angry, I was heartbroken, and I spent years being afraid of being left — almost every night I waited until my mom fell asleep, sneaking into her room and making a bed on the floor so that if she got up to leave I would know. Tripping over me on the way to the bathroom drove her crazy, but I was comforted by the fact that she was right beside me all night. Similarly, my brother and I both insisted on sleeping in my dad's room during our visits with him.
I think what really made a difference in how I look at them now is that neither one spoke badly about the other in front of us kids. They could have talked about each other and filled our heads with ideas that the other was a bad parent, but they chose not to. I know they were both hurting, but I never went to one house or the other with my opinions made up for me.
Over the course of five years my parents grew as individuals, developing a real relationship with God and learning about forgiveness. While their faith previous to this experience was young and built mainly on the beliefs of their parents, it now became their own and grew to overcome the pain of divorce.
I don't believe in coincidence, and slowly as the years passed my dad's jobs moved him closer and closer to where my brother, mom and I lived. My parents built a friendship again, and my dad's presence became something I expected during family outings. They fell back in love, stronger than before, and when I was 9 years old they remarried in my grandparents' backyard. My brother and I looked on as the two people we love most promised to love each other forever, really forever. June 26, 2004 is our family's most important day, and this weekend they celebrated twelve years of redeemed marriage, the second time around.
No, I didn't make any elaborate plans with my brother to get them back together, and no, I don't have a British twin that I switched places with to force them to cross paths again. God takes the credit in this story, and while I never imagined this would be my "normal," I always knew my parents made more sense together than apart.
If you're the type of person that can read stories like this and say, "I think divorce is a sin," then you're getting the story wrong. Divorce hurts and it comes with consequences, but my parents are more in love today than they've ever been, and I believe that love is built on a foundation of redemption and formed through pain they vowed never to experience again. I can't look at how many people they've helped and how many marriages they've impacted and think for once that God frowns upon that.
With this being such a big part of how I see the world, it has taught me a few lessons about relationships, both platonic and otherwise: forgiveness matters, redemption is always possible and intentionally loving a person for better or for worse isn't always easy, but it's worth it.
To the best people that I know, happy anniversary. I know remarriage isn't part of every divorce story, but I am so grateful that it was a part of yours.
