Sophia wanted her turn. We sat at the dinner table going through our days and she was anxious to share. It was a 7th grade drama – a mild version of mean girls. Sophia set the scene. “We were playing a trick on Josie and hiding her book. I don’t know why. It’s just a thing. So I told her I had her book. I didn’t. So I don’t know why I said it, but that’s what I told her.” I could see the snowball forming as she moved through her story. “Sophia, you are too dumb to have my
Doing Divorce
Angela Dunne provides practical advice based on real examples of what she and her clients have faced through the transition of divorce.
When Santa came to visit my house for Christmas in 1984, he gifted me a Fisher-Price Kids Kodak 110 Film blue camera. It was the second-best Santa gift I ever received next to the “Pretty In Pink” Barbie from 1981. My camera came with a cartridge of eight flashbulbs to use indoors. I fancied myself a photographer while posing my Barbies, my cats, and my favorite Raggedy Ann doll around our backyard. Soon after the first set of prints were picked up from the film developer, my mom bought me my first scrapbook. I meticulously kept scrapbooks from 1984 to
I stayed in bed because I knew I was supposed to. I pretended to sleep through the whispered arguments and the clanking of dishes. I peeked out from under the covers to see her proudly carrying the cookie sheet with her Mother’s Day display. I successfully feigned waking up rested and delighted to the breakfast prepared in my honor. How I choked down that very full bowl of soggy Special K, I will never know. My daughters, who were 9 and 7 that year, were trying their very best to make my Mother’s Day memorable. And they did. I will
I sucked in every molecule of air in the room when my dad’s doctor confirmed it was prostate cancer. After weeks of testing, we finally had the clarity that comes with results. Despite anticipating this would be the news, the tears streamed down my face. My dad had been through enough in the last seven months by going through two hematoma surgeries on his brain – didn’t he get a pass for this add-on? In the weeks that followed, I took detailed notes and read the summaries for multiple doctor appointments, my mom supported my dad with everything from his
Both of us baby-faced and needing frequent naps, I could have spent the rest of my days with her head tucked safely under my chin and her little sixteen-pound body warming my heart. At six months into her life, I was finally getting the hang of things and not congratulating myself nightly that she was still breathing. I was now accustomed to the permanent expansion of my heart. Little did I know then that in seven short years, her father and I would be working through a divorce and my plans for parenting with him would be barely recognizable by the
I thought it was heat rash when the red prickly, itchy bumps appeared. Then the pain set in and my instincts told me otherwise. The doctor took one look and resolutely said, “Shingles.” “Adult chicken pox?” I asked. “At your age the only explanation is that it is stress induced,” he looked at me with what felt like a smidge of silent judgment. I was on Google as soon as I walked in the door to discern how long this bout would last, my mind already racing to the commitments I had the following work week and how was I
It is too dramatic to say I felt disbelief staring at my sixteen-year-old daughter’s handwritten words. But it was certainly on the spectrum of stunned. In a rare and fleeting moment of one-on-one time with my busy teenager, she was sharing with me the journal she had been tasked with keeping for her high school writing class. I read the words again: “For me, the holiday season has been hard. With having divorced parents, I don’t think it will ever be easy. There is always guilt when leaving one parent on Christmas morning to go to the other, knowing that the parent
Where was she now? My rambunctious and sneaky Sophia was nowhere to be found. Still in her footie pajamas, it was easier for her to be stealthy. I retraced my steps through the house. When I came back down to the living room the quiet was eerie. I heard the slightest shift of her. From where? Behind the chair? I knelt onto the chair with both knees so I could peer over the back. In the corner, nestled behind the chair was my two-year-old, her face full of cookies. She didn’t just get caught with her hand in the cookie
I could tell you a love story. But this is a divorce blog. However, for context and fun, I will write you some of the good bits (with his permission, of course). I noticed his arrival across the outdoor pavilion that mid-August evening where my future fellow law school classmates were mingling and meeting for the first time before our classes started the following Monday. He approached with his big smile outlined by deep dimples. I was instantaneously smitten. If love at first sight exists, this is the closest I have ever been. He was a year ahead of me in
I left early. At 6:00 a.m. to get ahead of the day, the traffic, the time zone changes. My route took me through the Willamette National Forest in Oregon while the eastward rising sun kept peeking at me through the forest evergreens. For miles the ducks on a nearby lake were my only company. I pulled out on a lookout spot for Mt. Washington. I breathed in all the peace my body could take. The last two months had left me feeling battle worn and emotionally bruised. I took this moment to be present and told myself to let go. The tears
