Someone was there to Console me

It was a quiet Saturday morning in October when my friend Mary and her mother Ramona came to visit. We were laughing and just having a good time when all of the sudden we heard the door bell ring. Mindy, my teenage daughter goes and answers the door and yells: "Mom it's for you!” When I heard that, my heart stopped for fear of what it was…  

For so many days I had not been answering the door if I was not expecting anyone because I was afraid I would be getting served. (Brent had moved out of the house one months earlier.) I went to the door and signed the dotted line acknowledging that I had received the divorce papers and saw for the first time in black and white my now ex-husband’s last name Vs. mine. (Vanderloo Vs. Vanderloo) I never had imagined we would get to this point of actually becoming one against each other like opposing teams in a game or a boxing match.

 Brent and I were perfect for each other because we loved doing the same things. We never had argued or had any big disagreements. We were a solid match in the important things that mattered the most of which was our deep devotion to our Mormon faith and our love for home and family. For decades we belong together, we were part of the same team wanting the same things, we had no secrets as we were one and I even thought we were happy.

 Under the best of circumstances, I always have been slow to react, slow to respond but that morning I was speechless, numb and in shock even when I knew the inevitable would happen eventually. It was a matter of time. I carried those papers back into the kitchen where my friends were and after a few moments of awkwardness I had to tell them the truth, (no more pretending that we were still a perfect family.) I said: This is it. It's over! I showed them the divorce papers. As we all stared at those papers we cried together forming a circle by holding each other in a group hug.

Now looking back I think, they were heaven sent! I don't know why Mary and Ramona were there? What made them come over to visit me at that precise moment? They never had come over spontaneously like that before.  If they came it was for a dinner invitation or some other event or party but the fact that my best friend Mary was there, someone I love dearly (as if she was my own sister) and was there to hold my hand to give a little moral support was a tender mercy!