Anonymous

Photography by Kathryn Treacy

If you’re reading this, take the time you need to grieve 

I’ve learned recently that grief is not confined to death. 

During the second week of my senior year Spring semester, I learned my parents were getting divorced. “Surprised” doesn’t capture how I felt. I’ve watched their relationship slowly erode over the past several years. But the ending was hard. What could have ended in an amicable split instead ended abruptly in catastrophe and heartbreak. 

At 22, I’m not a “child of divorce” in the traditional sense. I spent my whole childhood with my parents in a relatively happy marriage. Rationally, I feel like their split should not hurt as much as it does. But still somehow, when my family came undone, I did too.

I’ve come to realize it's not the separation that bothers me. I would rather have two separated and happy parents than two together and miserable ones. But the way my parents’ marriage unraveled caused irrevocable pain for everyone involved. 

I am sure there was harm done on both sides, but my father’s actions hurt my mother immensely, and I quickly watched him become an entirely different person from the one I thought I knew. Not only did my family relationships change, but I also felt like I lost my dad. 

It has been a kind of loss I can’t quite name. It’s not a death, exactly – it’s not even a clear-cut goodbye. This loss is ambiguous – one that sits in the spaces between what was and what will never be again. It is a kind of loss where nobody really leaves, but nothing is left the same.

I want my dad back, but not as he is now, not as he has hurt me. I am trying to make amends in a way that honors everyone. It's hard. I want conversation to flow and do its work of repair. I know that people are imperfect. I want so badly to show love and compassion. But I also want my pain to be recognized. I want my father to feel how much hurt he has caused. But this feels vengeful, and that is not how I wish to be. When all else fails, I try to remember Taylor Swift’s advice: “I can’t make it go away by making you a villain.” The damage is done and the hurt doesn’t disappear by placing blame. This is easier said than done, but I am trying to walk the line between protecting my peace and attempting reconciliation.  

The second half of my senior year has been painful and uncertain. Nothing has been easy or simple for the past four months. I lost the entire month of February to a cloudy haze of tears and exhaustion. I woke up one day to realize it was March – only to wonder where the time had gone. Truthfully, I feel dramatic about it. I want to have fun and soak up the little time I have left with my friends before we graduate. I feel like I should be able to push past this strange form of grief and enjoy my life. After all, nobody is actually gone. But it keeps reinventing itself in new ways. It’s painful to see my mom cry in a way I have never witnessed before. It’s so hard to know that she is hurting too. It’s also difficult to be weathering the transitional time period of “Senior Spring” at the same time my family life is faltering. As we all make post-grad plans, I have watched my friends turn to their parents for advice and guidance about grad school, jobs, and apartment hunting. Despite desperately needing the support of my parents right now, it is not something I can strongly count on. This has left me feeling pressure to make the “right” decisions for myself, uncertain if I’ll have a safety net to catch me if I fall.

I wish I could end this letter by saying that things have gotten better. But they haven’t, really. As time goes on, some wounds heal but new ones emerge. I shift between anger and sadness. Anger can be productive, but sadness burns me out. Sadness is where reflection and remembrance occur. It makes me realize that even when the dust has settled, home and family will never look or feel the same. Someday, there will be a new normal and all this pain will be a distant memory. But for now, I am still adjusting. I’m still in a world of firsts: the first time returning home, the first time speaking to my father, the first birthday that passes without recognition. 

What I can say is that there have been bright spots. There has been plenty of laughter and love within this experience. I have incredible friends who never stop listening. They have made space for my sadness without trying to shrink it. They have been a sounding board for the anger and pain without judgement. They’ve never told me there is a timeline for my feelings and there has been no expiration date on their support.

Maybe this is what healing looks like. It is not a slow resolution or the absence of pain, but the presence of love, laughter, and connection in its midst.

Anonymous, Boston College

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