Cody
Williams
My Views
Moving Day
We looked for my two year old beautiful daughter but could not find her anywhere. My wife Kimberly and her parents had taken the last of her things out of our home at number 10 High Wood Road. It was 'move out' day for them, finalizing our separation and moving us a closer step to divorce. Beau and her brother Frank who is four are too young to realize how these decisions will later impact their lives. We explained it to them as just 'moving day.'
"But why are we moving," Frank, my son asked. He is in the 'but why' stage of life. He's trying desperately to understand the world around him more, and even direct answers to his 'but whys' are met with another, 'but why.' And then another, 'but, why?'
"We're getting new homes, son," I told him.
"A red one?" he asked. Red has become his favorite color, probably because it's my favorite color. He had that puzzled look on his face that says there is more to this than they're telling me and I don't really know the words to ask them for more information.
"It won't be a red one, but it will have a play ground with lots of other kids to play with," I said.
"Oh, I see." He said, as if he really did.
He still doesn't realize that his mother and I will not be moving into the same place, nor will we ever as a family live in the same house again.
I fight hard each day not to blame Kimberly for the breakup of our family and the breakdown of our home. Our kids deserve so much more from both of us. They are so beautiful. Our house was comfortable. I worked so hard putting everything I had, every energy I could muster in our marriage, our family, our home. I did not take a breath that was not for them. I could not have given more of myself and still be me. I needed so much to make our life together work. This divorce has depressed me.
But, as hard as I tried to make Kimberly happy she just couldn't be, not with me. Not for me. She had to be happy for herself. Her pains run deep. In meeting me she searched for happiness. In marrying me she searched for happiness. In becoming a mother, twice, she searched for happiness. In building a home she searched for happiness. Yet she was not happy with me and our marriage was troubled, but I felt not in an unredeemable way. We became two loveless strangers mistrusting each other, neglecting each other, abusing each other often in front of our children. I asked her if she wanted to put every effort into trying to make it work, or to split. Making it would have taken a lot of work. "We would have had to change who we are," she said. She chose to split and take the kids with her.
And now with all of her things packed inside the van our two year old daughter could not be found. We searched and searched. She was last seen in the kitchen someone remembered.
Our kitchen was spacious with lots of cabinet and counter space. I like to cook and the kitchen sold me on the house. There the kids had claimed as their own the center cabinets under the counter where we first tried to store Tupperware and other plastic storage containers. It became their secret space and I had to move the plastic ware to an unsightly place above the cabinets. With the cabinet emptied they would crawl into it with a flash light and play 'tree house'; or sometimes it would be their automobile; or, a sleeping compartment on their imaginary train ride to Delaware. (We took Amtrak once to Delaware to visit their cousins Naomi and Alexia).
That's where we found her. With the moving vans packed and everyone looking for Beau, calling her name and searching frantically, she had crawled into their secret space in our once-upon-a-time home, and was hiding, quietly in the dark, listening to her parents walking by and planning separate lives in two separate houses. We opened the cabinet door and there she was. Usually, when discovered she would grin and say, "you found me." This time her hiding was not a game. I could just tell. When I pulled her out she put up a little fuss but did not cry. I believe she new that this `moving day' was not the best thing, that her secret spot was not going to be her secret spot much longer, and that life was not going to be as carefree as an imaginary train ride to Delaware.
(c) copyright 2004 Cody Williams
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