kiwords

I went to get my hair done today. I may have mentioned before that Kristy, my hair genius, has a bit of a chaotic life. Well, her news today was that she’s separated from her husband. Booted him out, actually.
They have two little girls, 2 ½ and less than one year old. It’s not an unusual story. He’s been doing…things and…women he shouldn’t. She had enough and packed his things and changed the locks. As she told me the story, I watched in awe. I wasn’t that together, I thought. She is in charge. I was at sea at that point. In shock. I forgot the baby in the car once. I was not in charge.
Kristy tossed her head and announced her intentions as far as child support and visitation. I listened and marveled at how in control she was. I thought all these things because I wasn’t able to get a word in edgewise. “It’s not like I wanted us to split up!” she practically shouted, “He wasn’t coming home at night! I mean, ALL night! Can you imagine?”
Um…I don’t have to imagine. What I couldn’t get my mind around was handling it as well as she was.
Her cell phone rang and she glanced at it and tossed it in a drawer. “It’s him,” she shrugged, and went on. Then the salon phone rang. No one else was there to answer it, so Kristy stepped a few feet away to the desk to answer it. It was her husband. I watched her talk to him. Her posture changed, just melted from the angry woman who had been laying out her battle plan a few minutes earlier. Her shoulders sagged and her eyes fell to gaze dully at the floor. Suddenly she looked like a frightened little girl.
My dad says you can tell a gift from God because it blesses both the person receiving it and the person giving it. The transverse reality is true. Divorce is a gift from Hell. There is no one that goes unharmed in a divorce. The kids, of course. They hurt. The broken couple hurts. Families hurt. Friends hurt.
I sat in the black swivel chair, my hair dripping, and relived the shattered feeling of listening to someone you made babies with speak to you with such rage it sucks all the air out of the room.
No one gets through a divorce without damage.