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(Twenty) Eight

I was only eight when that passport was collected from the locker, those bags were packed, and a painful separation was initiated.

Even as a child, I could feel the intuitive ending as it drew near. I had known, without complete certainty, that the apparent stability in my life was slowly transiting into a monster I would have to live with for the next many years of my life.

Children understand things in a way that adults never can. Children feel and perceive, without denying or analyzing. And in my case, the intuition was even stronger than most other kids. While other kids would often grow up in cheerful ignorance, I always sensed that unsettled remark, always understood the sideway glance, and always felt that double meaning.

Do you ever forget the moment when things break? When families split? Does the feeling of incompleteness, of having a part of you missing, of a pain from a distant past, ever ease?

Do separations ever end? Do you get over that need to have someone come back?

Comments

  1. Anonymous10 May 2018 at 22:44

    My coach once told me, "Only when you are divorced do you realize how married you once were." But that's a relationship of chemistry, where sadness eventually fades and the void is filled by something or someone. Relationships of biology, I believe, are different. Nothing fades - other than pain and disappointment. What remains is sweet nostalgia and a penchant that we attempt to explain away.

    AnL

    ReplyDelete

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