I remember the whole thing as if it happened yesterday. I was 12 years old that summer and it started off great because school was out and I could spend more time with my friends. Everything was as it was supposed to be until one day after a long day of running around and playing some games with my friends I walked into our house and my parents were arguing fiercely. I got scared because I had never heard my parents argue before, and I yelled at them to stop. But they didn't notice that I was there for a long while. Finally they heard me and they stopped yelling at each other. But for the next couple of months they would argue uncontrollably, and I was so scared of what was going to happen I either stayed in my room or I was outside so I wouldn't have to listen to them argue.

Then one day when I was playing outside they both called me into the kitchen, and at the table they told me that they were getting a divorce. As soon as I heard this I ran to my room and started throwing my things around. I couldn't believe what I had just heard because I used to think that we had the best family in the world and this couldn't happen to us. Then they walked into my room, and while I was lying on my bed they sat by me and told me that it wasn't my fault they were doing this. It was because they couldn't get along anymore and they had to be apart. I felt a little better because I thought that it was me who had done something wrong and that's why they were separating. But it didn't change much because they were going to get a divorce anyway, and we were going to be torn apart and wouldn't be a family anymore.

After the divorce was settled I had to stay with my mom, but I was glad that I was able to at least visit my dad. I was mad at him because he had left us but I still loved him because he was my father. As time went by, though, hardly visited my dad, and about two or three years later I completely stopped visiting him because he got remarried and had other kids to take care of. He hardly paid attention to me anymore anyway. In time it felt like he wasn't even my father, and because he acted like he'd forgotten about us I grew to really hate him.

Six years after he was remarried he had a heart attack and died. We attended his funeral and there we really got to know his new family. I was really broken up that my dad had died and I couldn't bring myself to accept that he was really gone. I remembered when we were still a family and he was the one who was always there for me.

To this day I wonder how we would have been if my mom and dad hadn't gotten a divorce. But I know that things happen for a reason and that sometimes two people aren't meant to be together. I don't think of the pain of the divorce anymore, though. I only think about the great memories of our togetherness when we were still a family.