Books, essays, cards, letters.
Over the years, I have come to associate paper and ink with good things.
However, when the packet of divorce papers was plopped on my doorstep just before Thanksgiving, (Happy Holidays!) I knew I was about to enter a new landscape, one foreign to me—the frozen tundra of purposefully emotionless language. I felt the chill of the white papers immediately.
Indeed, so forbidding is this landscape to average people that we need to hire high-price guides just to make our way though it.
I had known this day was coming and had tried to prepare for it by looking up the forms in advance, so I opened the packet slowly, mentally reviewing what I had seen online and I bundled up emotionally, preparing for the bitter cold of the paper blizzard within.
Yep. There were the frosty forms all right, put together and topped off with a cheery little letter from HOB’s attorney. She had thoughtfully provided a little rundown of the action to follow in the packet.
I scanned the letter and then took a deep breath and flipped to the next page.
That’s when I saw it.
At the bottom of the Petition for Dissolution of Marriage, I saw his signature--the familiar scrawl of the man I had lived with for thirty years, of the man who had once loved me with all his heart. How well I knew those loops, the way the "i" in his name was dotted, the curl at the end of his (our) last name.
In all the years of our marriage I had associated that signature with good. Love letters, the co-signature on the deed to our house, birth certificates, cards (one beautiful one proclaiming his undying love just a week before he left). I sat and cried seeing that familiar ribbon of ink, starkly contrasted with all the block, uniform lettering that otherwise covered the documents.
I rubbed my finger over that signature as if I could discern his attitude at the time of signing.
Did his pen hover above the line with any sort of hesitation? A forced suspension of all emotion? Was there a gritty resolve? A giddy feeling of elation?
The paper, of course, revealed nothing. The signature just sat there, looking maddeningly ordinary.
I knew in order to get through the rest of the papers, I had to distance myself psychologically.
Since I am an English teacher, a writer, and a sometime editor, I have done my share of reviewing writing and passing suggestions on to writers. I went into that mode. It was the safest one for me. In my head I started a draft of my review and suggestions for improvement. It went something like this:
To: HOB’s lawyer. Re: Your cover letter.
Nice job in being succinct and to the point in what was enclosed in the packet of papers. However, you may want to reconsider the use of the line “Looking forward to working with you on this matter.” Is this appropriate in this case?
Perhaps if we were planning a brunch or a charity event, this sentence might work, but are you really looking forward to participating in the sad task of dissolving a marriage of thirty years? This well-worn (and perhaps a bit too revealing) line may be seen as insensitive to the involved parties. Consider a simple, understated “Sincerely” instead.
To the State of California: Re: The heading of "You Are Being Sued" (followed by the culturally-sensitive Spanish translation.)
First of all, I find the use of the passive voice an interesting choice here. Seriously consider why you are using it and proceed from there.
In addition, I understand that that brevity and clarity is your goal here, but the connotation of this language cannot be overlooked.
Breach of contract, personal injury, property damage: these I understand warrant the bold “You are being sued” heading. However, participating fully in a relationship, providing a warm and happy home, doing the bulk of work of raising children, and finally, offering to work side-by-side with the aggrieved party in the salvage of the marital union, do not, I believe, warrant such a austere announcement.
Consider instead that the recipient of these forms may have simply been a victim of a spouse’s midlife crisis, a bystander at the collision of a man’s realization of his own mortality and his dissatisfaction with a life that he himself chose but in his later years found too restrictive and prescribed.
Consider that perhaps he aimed the laser beam of that unhappiness at the most obvious of ties in his life, thereby avoiding the painful inner work needed to achieve long-lasting peace. Consider all that and then consider a softer approach to this announcement.
(Perhaps a simple transposition of the “s” and the “u" in “sued”? Just a suggestion.)
I have come a long way since that day in November. The mountain of paper grows; the divorce notebook groans with the weight of them. So many documents to arrive at a final, and probably relatively simple, document that will signal the end.
I no longer run away from the task at hand. I file what needs to be filed, I ask my guide for help when I need it, and I gather strength and hope from my friends who have been through this before.
Someday, these papers will be stuck in a file cabinet, locked away in the dark, frozen in time and place, weighed down, saddled with the burdens of this confusing period of life.
But I won't be.
I now know that without a doubt. I won't be.
