Personal Narrative: My Experience With Divorce

In seventh grade, my mom and dad were getting a divorce. Through the divorce, my step grandma dragged my dad to my grandpa’s side and tore my mom and her family relationships apart. However, the situation eventually simmered down. My dad let go of his bitterness, mom married the man who sparked the need for a divorce, and Jaja, with my cousin’s persistent persuasion, calmed down. Eventually, mom allowed us visit Jaja (our name for our grandpa) again. Yet, once we walked in, Jaja started yelling at mom and kicked her out of the house. Later, Jaja, my sister, Melanie, and I were going to sit down and eat, when all of a sudden mom’s new husband barged through the door. He started to yell at Jaja, dragged my sister and me out of the house, and drove us away.
For years, whenever I would see my mom’s husband around the house or even hear his name, hatred swarmed my heart. I began pity myself. I hated how I was the one crying myself to sleep at night and my mom was the one happy and asleep. I didn’t deserve to live with the man who had caused all of this to happen. I wasn’t just in self pity, I was livid.
Other than my parents, my piano teacher was the only other person who knew about this whole situation. I had to go to

piano lessons the day after mom’s husband took us home, and she knew something was wrong and refused to start until I talked. I told her about mom, dad, Jaja, and I started crying right in front of her. She was silent for a long time. Finally, she took my hand and said, “When you boil a potato, its skin becomes soft, but when you boil an egg its shell hardens. This situation hardened your family. Don’t you dare let it harden you.” It then clicked that my pity was leading me down the road of bitterness and hatred. If I continued down this path I was going to end up bitter like my dad, stubborn like my mom, and alone like my grandpa. I didn’t want to turn into my family.
She changed my perspective on the way I looked at my family’s situation because she made me realize that I was stronger than I thought I was, and I was going to become like them if I didn’t allow my heart to show love and not hate.

To this day, I remain neutral and instead help my sister through this process. She has seemed to form a new kind of hatred towards mom that I’m trying to help her extinguish. I don’t want her to harden her heart like I almost did. I never want to become so bitter that my family loses me forever like we did Jaja. I eventually forgave my stepfather because I knew I didn’t want to lose him and mom either. Mrs. King helped me learn how to forgive and grow compassion from a situation that had hardened the people around

me.