Homecoming, Divorce, and My Parents’ Greatest Gift

Maggie as a child, top left, and photos of her with her family.
Maggie as a child, top left, and photos of her with her family.

“There are two lasting gifts that parents can give their children. One is roots and the other is wings.”

This quote had a permanent place on our living room wall when I was growing up, but by the time I left for college, I didn’t feel that my parents had given me a place to plant my roots. Instead, their relationship — filled mostly with arguing and fighting — just gave me wings to fly away.

My childhood was full of adventure, summer camp, nature, and joy. Our parents loved my brother and me very much and made sure we knew it. But at a young age, I internalized my parents’ fighting and thought it was because of something I had done wrong, that something was inherently wrong with me.

In my hometown of Portland, Oregon, my roots go deep, all the way back to the 1800s when my five-times great-grandfather traveled on the Oregon Trail from Knoxville, Tennessee, to found the small town of Brownsville, Oregon. Given that history, it seems as though I would naturally feel a strong sense of connection to this place.

On the contrary, I felt so disconnected from Portland and from Oregon that I had no problem uprooting myself. As soon as I could, I fled home. Since graduating high school in 2007, I have traveled and lived abroad, but I learned the hard way that trying to bury pain and guilt from the past only gives them more time to build strength before they resurface.

In September 2013, after all my attempts at making a great escape, I ended up right back in Portland. I finally felt like I’d given up the need to escape the dysfunction. I thought I had made peace with the past, or at least buried it deep enough so that I wouldn’t have to deal with it ever again. But I quickly learned that that’s not how the past works, and it actually wasn’t completely up to me to decide whether or not I would ever confront all of my feelings. Some of it, as it turned out, was up to my parents and their choices about their relationship.

I moved back to Portland to find two parents who had completely separated from one another and shut each other out. They had reverted to different ways of numbing the pain of their marriage’s demise and the ripple effect it would have on all in its wake.

In February of this year, right after I thought I had buried all of my feelings of anger and resentment, my Dad texted my brother and me saying that he would be selling our childhood home to pay for my parents’ divorce settlement.

Tears wouldn’t stop flowing. While I began to mourn this loss and felt the overwhelming weight of my pain unfold, I simultaneously felt an inner stillness and understanding that it would all be okay. I felt a peace that this was — and is — what I needed to go through right now. I didn’t feel ready for the divorce, but it was happening whether I liked it or not. I had a choice. I could forget everything and run, or I could face everything and rise. Contrary to how I’ve faced other bouts of pain and hurt in my life, I chose and am choosing to face it. This process of uprooting is allowing me to recognize the infertile soil that’s still clinging to my roots so I can shake it off and ground myself in fertile soil where I will continue to grow.

As my parents are in the process of ending their 28-year marriage, I am consciously letting myself be vulnerable, confronting and letting go of the pains of my past. It’s time for me to let go of the way that I was, of the masks that I wore, and dig deep into who I truly am.

With every day, with every emotion, I am in the process of beginning a new life, a new way of existing with the complete certainty that the pains of my past are enabling me to grow into the whole-hearted, compassionate, courageous human being I am. This time around, the roots and wings I am growing will ground me deeper and lift me higher than before and not only higher, but in the direction of my authentic self. My parents didn’t give me those roots and wings when I was growing up like I would’ve hoped, but everything they’ve done has led me on a beautiful journey to discover for myself the importance of planting my roots and spreading my wings according to who I truly am, and that is the greatest gift they could ever give me.