I wake up in the middle of the night, almost every night for a long time. All I hear is yelling, but I tell l myself it’s the dogs howling outside; they hear something in the woods. It’s the tree branches hitting the side of the house with the wind. But no its exacially what I don’t want it to be; the two people I look up to the most and love. I get up make the loudest noise possible in the bathroom, so they know I am awake. Seconds later the yelling’s stops, the rest of the night is silent.

Days go by, the same thing happens most nights. Some nights I sleep with no noise at all. My dad usually ends up hunting every night while my mom’s at home with my brother and I. Acting like nothing’s wrong trying to be strong for us. The next day comes and it’s a beautiful Saturday morning. My dad makes my brother and I go outside to talk with him. We instantly think, “Oh crap! Did we do our chores, do the cows have water.” We sit down on the porch swing, my dad’s on the picnic table across from us. I look at my dad. He had this sad, disappointed look on his face; like he was going to cry. I was confused, my dad had always been happy, never sad, and most definitely NEVER cries.

Suddenly my dad says, “Your mom and I are getting a divorce. Neither of us are happy and it’s not healthy for you guys to hear us fight and just be unhappy.” The word divorce just sunk in the back of my head. That was all I kept repeating over and over in my mind. I didn’t hear anything else my dad had said because none of it mattered. It wasn’t going to work. Divorce is a word that no kid ever wants to hear out of their parent’s mouth. Divorce was supposed to be a word that wasn’t even in their vocabulary.
Hearing that word I automatically started crying because I had seen it coming for quite awhile, it was just a matter of time. It was a matter of time for my parents to figure what was going to happen, and if they were going to make the big jump to change our lives for forever. My dad, brother and I all cried we all had a bunch of different emotions. I was sad, mad, relieved in a way so that my parents could both be happy.
All I remember is my father repeating over and over, “I’m sorry; I never wanted this to happen. I love you guys so much.” Deep down in my heart I knew it was for the better, and my parents would be happier, It would be hard, but nothings easy. Never in my life had I expected this to happen. We were supposed to be the happy family that does everything together.
But now that I’m a few years older, I know it’s for the better, and Its okay for everything to not work out, you can’t make things work, so why try. I love my family and I always will no matter what. Christmas, birthdays, Thanksgiving might be different, and hard on me because kids want everything to work and be perfect. But nothings perfect and that what you have to realize. Life is a journey of a road that’s windy, steep, flat, and even some have a dead end. But once you get to the dead end every once and awhile you have to turn around and try a different road. That is how my life is, I never gave up, I might have hit a dead end, but there is always another road that will work for me.