My father kissed his daughter and three sons on the lips every time he said hello or goodbye. A hard-working machinist who enjoyed golf and a good beer, he never worried about what it looked like to an outsider. He always kissed my mother in front of us and to me, my parents’ love has affected me far more than their divorce ever did.
I kiss my spouse three times every time I leave him—once for good luck, once for the road, and once for I love you. The maybe-cheesy ritual started when we were dating, and like my father, I never worried about what it looked like to people on the outside.
I believe in exhibiting a healthy relationship in front of my children, too—because my parents divorced, and their relationship strained a bit over the years, with new spouses who added an uncomfortable dynamic when there are children in the mix.
But despite the feeling in the pit of my stomach the day all four were in the same room—for my wedding rehearsal dinner—more entrenched in my heart is the day two years later, when my father lay dying of cancer, and he and my mother spoke privately of their children and lives. I’ll never know the details of what they said, but the sentiment and the moment brought back every memory I had of my parents being together.
Their marriage deteriorated after fifteen years of happiness. While I’ve outlasted them by five, it has never left the back of my mind that circumstances can change, unexpected things happen, and the Universe has a way of doing whatever it wants. In my parents’ case, it came in the form of an aneurysm in my father’s brain, so deeply lodged that his surgery made it into the American Journal of Medicine. Brain surgery is tricky, though, and after my father’s, alcohol would make him violent, with no memory of it the next day. One of my most vivid memories is when my father, angry that my mother refused to give him the car keys, smashed the hood of the car with a picnic table plank—while she and I were in it.
My mother loved my father and stayed by his side as long as she could, but she couldn’t subject her children to his behavior. An aneurysm isn’t something predictable; it doesn’t come from unhealthy eating habits or drinking to excess or cheating on your spouse. But it’s something that could, and did, change our lives forever. My mother once said to me after my father passed away that no matter how right it was to divorce him, my father had always been the love of her life. That conversation has stuck, and comforts me in some strange way I can’t begin to explain.
The future is never guaranteed but making memories that stick can be. I don’t want my children to have memories of parents who existed in the same space but not the same heart, so I’ll take the example given by my parents. I kiss my spouse, who I affectionately call Roffey, all the time; I hug them often. And even though my teenagers roll their eyes and make gagging noises, I sometimes rub Roffey’s knee—or backside—as well. We hold hands. We make our children well aware of the abiding love we share—because that is the memory I want them to stamp inside their minds. We have open conversations (open within reason—they are teens, after all) about the importance of adults having healthy sexual relationships not motivated by fear, desperation, or peer pressure, but a desire to be closer to someone you love. We talk about the importance of communication and the importance of knowing when a relationship is not healthy.
My parents, through a fluke medical incident, ended in divorce, and as a child of divorce, I may always be wary of believing nothing can break you apart. But my parents’ example of love outshines that, and it’s what I want my kids to feel when they think about us.
There’s a quote from my favorite show, The Office, that sums up all I want my children to know: “When you’re a kid, you assume your parents are soul mates. My kids are gonna be right about that.”
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Hier und jetzt ended leider meine Reise auf Pixabay 😢 from Pixabay