Why my life will never be the same

When I was in second grade I remember sitting at lunch and hearing one of my friends talk about her parents getting a divorce. I thought to myself, that would never happen with my family; my parents are happy, life is good, we are doing good, and we do stuff together. They will never get divorced. My parents always tried to work through their problems civilly at that time. They wouldn't fight in front of us, they would try to come to an agreement without even raising their voices. As the years went on, that was no longer the case, and I soon learned that things are not always as they appear to be. Here is the tragedy that lead to me learning that lesson.

It was nearing the end of my fifth-grade year, and at this time my family had been living five miles north of Jackson, Minnesota. My dad had been working at AGCO in Jackson making farm equipment. My mother, brother, and I always rode to and from Windom with my grandma because they both worked at TORO and my brother and I went to school in Windom even though we lived closer to Jackson. The day before the school track meet I was excited and very talkative the whole thirty-minute drive home. We pulled into the driveway and saw that my dad was home, which was usual but there was also an unfamiliar white truck parked in front of the house. My mom entered the house first walking, through the disastrous kitchen, past the old wooden stairs and into the living room. At that time, our living room was separated by the pool table, laying on its side, up against the back of the couch. She walked around the end of the pool table and immediately told my brother and I to go to our rooms. At that time, I was too young to realize what that could mean or to understand what could have happened, so I just did as I was told, and I went upstairs. For the next couple hours, we heard screaming and my mother crying and then they finally called us downstairs. They told us they were separating and explained that it didn't mean they were getting a divorce, but dad wasn't going to be living with us anymore, at least for now. I was devastated, only hours ago I was so excited and energetic, but now I didn't want to go to school; I didn’t even want to leave my bed.

All I wanted was my parents back together. I dreamed of it, I hoped for it. I couldn’t understand what happened and they wouldn’t tell us what happened. My younger brother and I would push and push but they wouldn’t tell us what happened or why they split up.

As the years went on, my parents never got back together and my father's involvement in my life lessened and lessened. He started drinking, started dating other women and keeping it from me, and was in and out of jail almost constantly. Between him, my uncle, and their significant others, all of our pets as well as their children were taken away by the state due to the condition of the house and the surrounding property. Their standard of living was so low that there was no repairing the house; the county just knocked it down. When you walked in the house on your left there was a tower of garbage up against a half wall, when you walked around it you were supposed to be in the kitchen, but there were so many garbage bags the only reason you knew it was the kitchen was because there was a lack of garbage bags around the stove, fridge, and mountains of dirty dishes where the sink was supposed to be. If you would go into any of the bedrooms, there were urine stains and moldy dog feces because nobody wanted to get up and let the dogs out. No matter how hard I tried, any effort I made to clean the house, any evidence of it was gone by the time I returned, even in MY room. Soon after my cousins and pets were ripped out of my life, I found out what had happened the day my parents separated. My dad was having an affair with my mom's best friend who had just gotten a new truck, so we didn't recognize the vehicle. After I found out what happened, my father faded out of my life even more, but that was only because I wanted nothing to do with him. He had cheated on my mom and had such a low standard of living that it resulted in losing family that meant the world to me. My family really wasn't everything it seemed to be.

My life changed a lot after I found out about my dad cheating. I thought my family was going to stay together forever. Looking back, I am really glad it didn't but as a child it was all I could hope for. Trust me when I say, you can't believe everything is okay by what is on the surface, dig deeper.