Moleskin 3.8: Different Words

This is what I remember about my parents’ divorce: beyond the apparency of their separation, they spoke very little about it, at least around us kids, but now and then, quietly, we would hear different words like child support, group therapy, visitation schedules. Mom started dating, but with a certain reserve. Dad spent increased time with pastoral counseling services —counseling for pastors, the reason, it eventually occurred to me, that we had moved to Chicago, where the Lutheran Church had its clergy support system. I could not tell you the month or the year their divorce was finalized, but there was a day, probably sometime after Nixon resigned, that to my still continuing surprise, my mother’s picture appeared on one of the inner pages of the Tribune: she was among a crowd of picketers, rallying for divorce reform, and particularly for no-fault dissolutions and an increased recognition of the rights of co-parenting fathers. They called themselves EVE and ADAM, and Mom was holding up one of the ADAM signs.