The first and last day I spent with my grandfather

There are no books to help guide one through the murky waters of divorce.  All that remains are fragments of relationships and  -- Lord willing -- enough of a relationship between family members where the next generation that's detached from the gory details of the marital split can still connect with the adults 1 or 2 generations before them.

From stories, I knew the grandmother on my mother's side had 3 husbands.  I remember the 2nd to last or the last one with her as a young child.  Most of my time with my grandmother I knew her to be single.  Picture a Dominican women in a bad neighborhood wielding a machete to prune her bushes.  The showy use of the machete was intentional and she saw it to be necessary given the crime rates of Lawrence, MA 1980-1990s.

One summer, in a surprising turn of events, my mother arranged a trip for me, my siblings, and her mother to visit my grandmother's first husband.  He was a very successful architect in Hoboken, NJ in his 60s.  The apartment he had housed his 2nd wife and his daughter who I had never met before.

As time passes, memories compress tightly to obtain new information and new experiences.  So goes my memory which compressed 1 day with my grandfather into two specific events.

The walk

My grandfather had never met me before, but he seemed very proud to introduce me to his neighborhood friends.  He waved and greeted several people he passed or saw across the street.  I remember a conversation or two, but the prominent memory I have is him pointing out the buildings he designed.

Here I was just a 5 to 6 foot high school student and seeing the fruits of his mind cast 100 foot shadows across blocks and parks while simultaneously reflecting the sky and sunlight.  There were several buildings he pointed to and would proudly say, "I made that".

The generational hand off

One of the last stops on our walk he entered a very unpolished bodega.  The moment I stepped in, I knew where I was without even seeing the business sign.  There was a bodega in my former town in Lawrence, MA and it was almost identical to the one in stepped into in New Jersey. It was a place to grab produce, manufactured goods, and candy.  Candy like swedish fish, other junk food, American and Carribean Sodas, Malta, and frozen treats.  Back before I was 10 I could purchase a piece of swedish fish for a penny.  A dollar would get me a small paper bag full of the juicy fish shaped sweets.

These bodegas also dueled as a cultural meeting place.  To continue in the traditions of the Caribbean Islands,  these bodegas provided the foods islanders were familiar with:  Yuca, Platanos, and a variety of other foods.  And on American soil, they could keep their culture in their mouths and hearts too with this small business which served as a bridge between where they were from and their present abode in America.

We both walk into the store and, of course, my grandfather knew the store owner very well.  The owner tried speaking to me in Spanish, but my grandfather told him I didn't speak any Spanish.  The owner said, "La rapidez con que se va".  Loosely translated he was lamenting how even as his bodega helped keep the Hispanic language, cuisine, and traditions of conversation alive, this culture somehow hadn't been passed down to me.

An outsiders view on divorce

As a young child as a 4 or 5 year old, my first memory of marriage wasn't my parents.  It was a quaint wedding ceremony where a couple Dominicans in a Methodist church came together and were married in Lawrence, MA.  This memory is growing faint, but is still there.  From that snapshot in my life, I was inspired to get married as well and find someone worth marrying.  The memory was so powerful it guided my interactions with girls I liked up until I was married.  The outside ceremony was internalized and I wanted to be that close to someone.

I haven't seen the couple since they were married, but the same feelings come up when I attend a friend's weddings as they set sail into unknown waters.  People bound to each other as they change in a changing world.

There is a much darker memory I have of my parents divorce and the court room hearing that would decide which parent got custody.  I assumed kids who experienced their parents split up could at least do so in privacy of their home.  Yes the married couple grew apart, lets quietly move on.  The court room, unlike tv court rooms, had no background music.  There was silence and the rattling fans of ancient air conditioners.    Our family and the entire court room standing around the end of a failed marital charter.

Stacked above my parents divorce is another memory of my wife's parents split.  I was old enough to be able to speak with her mom before the divorce finalized, but again, I showed up long after she had made her decision.  In my head, I wanted to honor the initial memory I had as a child: two people get together and promise to take care of each other for their mortal lives.

My friend recently told me of his wife moving away and this immediately toppled me into wondering why so many marriages end in divorce?  Is divorce a problem in America?  A quick web + book search reveals that people in their early twenties for both genders are more likely to get divorced.  Couples with kids are slightly less likely to get divorced.

The fear I have is that this divorce monster will clearly break into my house, find my typing away at my computer, and pull me into itself so I will be among the divorcees.

But the truth is a divorce is the end of the relationship.  It's two shipmates parting ways at the nearest sight of land.  The sideways tree after unskilled pruning.  Divorce isn't the problem.  It is everything that leads up to someone calling it quits on someone else.  The concept that a divorce can actually separate two people is somewhat false.  I hear it from divorcees of long marriages when they talk about their X wife.  They say X so often it's as though they are still living together.  Can a divorce truly separate you from the closest person in your life?  The person who has brought you to where you are now due to sheer proximity?

I have seen it in my own life.  I cook and clean differently now that I've lived with my wife.  I think about finances differently.  I think about changing sheets and pillow cases (thinking is clearly not enough).  All this because I've seen my wife over 11 years consistently approach life's details in a meaningful way.  For some things, I would just start copying her... say if she made bread a certain way.  Over time her way of life starting changing my own.  Soon I would go from being inspired by her lifestyle and I would take it in and give it my own twist.

This assimilation (couldn't think of a better word) is something too deep to be removed.  Even Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind hinted at this.  Why is it then that people who become one in every way possible want to go back to being two?

I am no psychologist here so bear with me.  The dissolving of a marriage is partly due to ignorance and partly due to truth.  Even after all the oneness is going on, between the unplanned make out sessions, unity candle, bedroom, and beyond, the persons in the marriage are continually changing.  Lifestyles, work, habits, beliefs, are in flux.  To be on top of all this, people need to always be on the same page.  They need to take time out of their day and be comfortable with rambling.  Sharing dreams and fears without being concerned they will be judged or squashed.  This sharing and being on the same honest page over time would most likely prevent all divorces.

The flip side of this is ignorance of who you are.  I feel like my life would be different if I realized my passions earlier in life.  But realizing them at all is a start and playing with the passion and creating things transforms me.  If spouses are ignoring truly important areas in each others lives begging to be discovered they will inevitably grow apart.  I remember my father discouraged my mom from taking classes in college.  He discouraged her, yet she reopened this "door" wide open and has taught thousands of kids about handling bully's and is on the way to completing her PhD.   If someone would torture themselves through the expenses of college & years of trying to find a good adviser just for a degree, why should a person's ignorance stand in their way?

If a person loves the risk of gambling, take away the gambling and talk about risk.  May be there is some other way that desire for risk can be satiated, but ignoring a blind pursuit of risk will only lead to peril.

Since ignorance is turning away from the truth, truth is the main issue.  Truth in a relationship will save the ship.  Truth will help avoid thinking you are about to land in North America when you really are in the middle of the Caribbean.  Giving a place for truth in daily conversation and through the unwinding the walking stress ball of a person you are married to might just save your spouse from becoming someone you can't bear to live with.


Sources:
http://www.divorcestatistics.org/
Divorce: Causes and Consequences