One night my sister and I heard our parents fighting through our bedroom wall into the living room. To us this was a typical fight that we heard occasionally through our bedroom wall, but this one was quite different than the other arguments. We heard my mom telling my dad, “I want a divorce from you, I am done.” Those words will always circle and live in my brain.  My sister and I being young kids, we didn’t understand what she really meant when she said she wanted a divorce. My dad and mom were sitting in our living room surrounding our fireplace. My sister, Lynette and I had our ears pressed up and glued to one of the side walls in our bedroom so that we could listen to their conversation. The night went by as my sister, and I had laid in our bed staring up at the ceiling in total silence. By far, that was the longest night I have ever been awake through. I didn’t want the time to keep going, I didn’t want the sun to rise. I didn’t want to have to deal with a new reality, so even though I was awake staring at the ceiling most the night I also didn’t feel like I was there in a way. It felt like an out of body experience, even though as a child I didn’t know what those words meant. I knew something was wrong, the tone was different, the way they talked to each other was different. It was all so very different that my brain knew something was wrong and going to be different, at that moment I really had no clue what our reality was going to look like.

The next morning, we woke up and we saw my dad sitting on the couch holding a bag, sitting on his lap. When we came into the living room from our bedroom he got up and walked up to us, with his eyes filled with tears and his head down. I knew something wasn’t right, I could feel it in my bones. One of my most vivid memory and my most haunted nightmare was starting to become a reality. He could barely speak his voice was so shaking, he finally spit out the words that he was desperately trying to hold back. He said to us “he had to go for now and that he loves us very much, and he is so sorry.” All I remember next was screaming “dad don’t leave us” repeatedly.

A few days went by and the next thing I remember was sitting on the side of his house next to the front yard. There was my dad, sister and I just sitting there waiting, we didn’t know what we were waiting for. The second most vivid memory when I was a child was starting to become reality, yet again. My dad uttered the words “goodbye,” what did that mean goodbye? Was my mom picking us up to go to the store, what did he mean by goodbye? His head was still lowered to the ground and his eyes were filled with tears again. My stomach was in knots, and I had the worst gut feeling that I have ever experienced.  I can’t remember now what he had said back then, it’s all a blank. I heard the word goodbye and that was it for me, that was enough for my brain to hear. I still try to piece together the story and the words that he told us that day, but I still cannot remember anything other than the word goodbye. That nightmare, which was reality for me, I couldn’t remember the last thing I said to my dad that day. I still pray that I told him I loved him, I still pray that I wasn’t mean to him with my words.

I felt like I teleported to another world after that, the next thing I remember was sitting in the back of my mom’s car. I was scared, I was shocked, I was confused, I had no idea what was

going on. I stared out the window the entire ride watching cars go by and go by again. It felt like an eternity, that car ride. Where my mom picked us from my dad’s house, we ended up at the airport. Without hesitation, without feelings she blurted out “we are moving to New York.” I felt a feeling of pure disbelief, my entire body went numb. I thought I was going to pass out while walking onto that airplane. My sister and I had no words to say to each other, we literally were speechless. I have never experienced a feeling so empty before. One feeling that I did have that I will keep ahold to, is comfort. I had my baby sister by my side the entire time through this, we cried together, we held hands, we hugged. I know as the bigger sister I had to be the strong one, even though I couldn’t feel my fingertips, I couldn’t feel my hands and I could barely breathe, I had to be the strong one.

I sat down on the airplane and knew my life is going to change, but how? Why is it changing, what did I do? Was there something I could do, was there something I could have said to my dad? I had a flood of questions swimming through my head and to be honest as an adult now, I still have some of those very questions still swimming around my brain. Staring out that airplane window, I could feel nothing, my heart felt like it was at the bottom of my stomach. When we took off, I knew my dad was gone forever, or at least that’s how I felt. I will be thirty this December and still to this day, I feel like there was something that I could have done or said. It was just my sister and I, I have regret for my little sister still to this day. My sister and I are three years apart, so I couldn’t protect her the way I wanted to. Fast forward through our lives and today, I still have that regret but I am still working on forgiving myself. As an adult I know that I was not the reason for my parent’s divorce but I’m still fighting a memory that will not fade.