Q&A - Parents & Grandparents

Write about a time everything changed in the blink of an eye.

I was young... like in the low single-digits young... when my parents divorced.

Of course being that young, you don't really know what divorce is. I did know that something was wrong, and they weren't getting along.

I have vague memories of that time. I remember the fights, the yelling, the bad nights, the bad behavior... I have a faint memory of sitting in the back of a courthouse with my brother (and I remember the bench being hella uncomfortable).

I remember an empty house... and the moving truck. I remember riding in the car with my mom and her sister Amy. I think my brother - who is four years older than me - rode in the truck with Amy's husband Monte.

We probably stopped a few times for bathroom breaks, etc. But then we were at our new home... in Fresno... three hours away from Fontana in SoCal where my brother and I were born.

We had moved the Summer before my third grade year in school. My brother was starting junior high. We went from living in a two bedroom/one bathroom house with a carport to a three bedroom/two bath double wide trailer. My brother and I used to share a bedroom, and now we had our own rooms. I was the new girl in school. Making friends was weird since the only friends I really had were at school back in Fontana or family. (I never went on playdates... not sure why.)

I knew the gist of the scenario... not really what divorce was per se, but more on the level of "mommy and daddy don't get along anymore so they broke up" kind of thing. I wasn't sad about it. It was more like "Okay, so this is happening now." I thought the whole divorce thing was weird, and I was the minority since most other kids I saw had both parents - at least, I assumed they did, but then as kids talk, I found out my parents weren't the only ones divorced. There was one boy who spent every other week or so with each parent, but he seemed fine with it. As time went on, it became that the minority group were the parents that stayed together.

It took me until my freshman year of high school to 'find myself' since the move left me with this weird "I want people to like me" vibe so I accommodated the person I was with by changing for them... which ended up being more stress than necessary.

I now live in the Bay Area which is three hours north or Fresno. I have since found my groove but am always a work in progress. ^_^

Later my lovelies.

Have Goodness!
Rae

PS... I thought about writing about my Grandpa (my dad's dad) passing which happened shortly before the divorce, but I remembered less of that than I did of the divorce. Yes, it was still a "blink of an eye" kind of moment, but I just remember bits and pieces.

All I can recall is my grandpa repeatedly being in the hospital because he was "sick" so sometimes he was home when we visited him and Grandma and sometimes he wasn't. 

I also remember Mom taking me and my brother to see him in the hospital sometime later - I can never remember which one of us was home sick and which one got pulled out of class, but I do remember we were too young to go to his room, so we had to wait in the waiting room while Mom went to get him. She rolled him out in a wheelchair, and he had a cannula in his nose, the tubes wrapped around his ears and neck. He was smiling, that I remember. I sat in his lap at one point which I was worried about since he looked so weak, but he seemed fine with it. It felt... off somehow to me... like he was saying goodbye. 

Then shortly after from what I'm told he passed, and I remember my mother crying while dressing me to go to the funeral. I remember my brother and I being left alone while the adults cried A LOT at each other. My brother was quietly crying beside me staring at the open casket at the viewing. Since no one was paying me any mind, I got up and walked to the casket, stepping up on my tip toes to see inside, and there was Grandpa. He looked like he was asleep... and didn't look like himself in that blue suit they dressed him in (he always wore his denim overalls). And he wasn't wearing his glasses. I reached in to touch his hands which were folded over each other, and he felt oddly warm. I barely remember the cemetery, and I think I was only there the one time...might have gone once more some years after, but I have no idea where he's buried.

I didn't cry. I was really, really sad, but I didn't cry. Not until a long time after... like years after.

(Well look at that. I guess I did tell you about when my Grandpa.) -Rae