“Quickly get in here boys, I need to talk to you!” yelled my mom from her room at 8:30 in the morning. I couldn’t figure out what my mom was yelling about so early in the morning because she always let us lay in bed or play with toys for a while.

My parents names’ are Kristen and George and they have three children named Alex, Steven, and Adam (me). We lived in Novi, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. I was quite young (five) at the time, but I remember it very vividly.
Growing up I would always hear them screaming and yelling and I thought that was the normal in every family. I realize now that it’s not.

That morning my parents sat us three boys down and broke the news to us. It was a bright summer morning, blue skies and few clouds. They called us into their room and we knew something was up right away. When we got in their room, we all sat down on the bed and got comfortable. My mom was the first one to speak, “As you know, Mommy and Daddy haven’t been getting along lately, so we’re getting a divorce.”

Silence covered the room. My brothers and I had no idea what the word “divorce” meant. My dad was the next to speak, “Mommy and Daddy are splitting up, and we won’t be living together anymore.”

That’s when tears started rolling down my face and I was in disbelief. Our whole family was crying. I was heartbroken. We left the room not knowing what would happen next.

A few weeks later a HUGE yellow Penske truck rolled into my driveway. Out came my grandpa all the way from Rock Island, Illinois. I couldn’t believe he was here, and then all of a sudden a blue van pulled up and it was my grandma. I was really confused, but excited because I loved when my grandparents came. Why they were here was anyone’s guess because they only came to Novi around the holidays. They came inside and started giving my mom big hugs and told her everything was going to be all right, as she cried.

Then they started going into our rooms and loading stuff into the truck. I could feel my heart falling apart as they loaded my toys and belongings out of my room. I felt hopeless because I knew I couldn’t do anything to help. Hours later when they were finished loading our belongings up, my grandma gave me a hug and said, “Say goodbye to Daddy, you won’t see him in awhile.”

I asked her, “What do you mean?”

She responded with, “We’re leaving, and Daddy is staying.”

She carried me out to the car after I refused to leave. I got to say goodbye to my dad and that’s when I saw him cry for the first time in my life. I felt loved and crushed at the same time. That’s when I was put in the car with Steven, my grandma, and my mom and we were on our way to Rock Island. Alex rode with my grandpa in the Penske truck. The car ride was full of silence and tears. We arrived in Rock Island and unloaded our stuff.

We lived in my grandparents’ house for a few months because my mom was low on money and we were looking for a house. Steve and I started kindergarten and hated it. Every day when we were taken to school we would bawl our eyes out because it didn’t feel like the school I was supposed to be at. We felt like we needed to be back in Michigan with our dad and that made our mom very upset.

Luckily, things got a lot smoother once we found a house and my mom got a job at John Deere. We started playing soccer and hockey just like we had in Michigan.

Now I know that it is just not the same as having both of them together, and I have to act appropriately in life because my actions can hurt other people like the divorce had done to me.