When Stacy Morrison became aware that one of Life’s Big Moments was presenting itself to her, she quickly improvised, finding her footing as a parent and creating a bedtime ritual that both soothed her son and helped her stop mourning the loss of their mommy-daddy-baby family unit. From her memoir, Falling Apart in One Piece.
When Chris had first said the marriage was over, I was heartbroken for Zack, beside myself with grief that he would lose his family at such an early age and that I hadn’t been able to stop it.
I was also upset because it meant I was going to be tied to Chris for the rest of my life.
I actually had moments where I envied my friends who were divorced with no children; their exes simply disappeared, sometimes into other cities and new marriages, only months after the divorce was final. I knew how much my friends had been hurt by their exes’ instant immersion in shiny, new-and-improved lives without them, but I longed for such a simple ending. Instead, Chris and I were going to have to learn how to spend a lifetime sharing something precious, even after we had failed at sharing our lives.
But in the six months since Chris had moved out of the house, I was slowly coming to realize that in some ways the timing of our split had been a tremendous blessing. Zack had been too young when Chris moved out for us to need to explain anything to him, too young for us to have even considered a traditional custody arrangement, with Zack changing households every few days. It seemed clear to both Chris and me that Zack should have one home, one bedroom, one crib, and a reliable, everyday routine to help him get on with the business of being a toddler. We knew he needed to absorb and learn the world around him without the interruptions and anxieties of constant change. Instead, Chris and I would be the ones to bear the brunt of the discomforts and petty annoyances of accommodating each other in my home, even after Zack and I moved to our new apartment.
This arrangement suited what Chris and I were each struggling with most in our separation. Chris had a roster of anxieties about being able to take care of Zack the “right” way (the way I’d made up on the fly, which he’d been so furious at me for being able to do). So having Zack live in one place meant Chris wouldn’t have to learn my mysterious recipes for Zack’s nutritional mush, wouldn’t have to duplicate the set of bottles, set up a crib in his small apartment, keep up on what size diaper Zack was wearing, manage the nanny’s hours and pay. All of this annoyed me, and I complained about it for a week or two with friends before I realized that it meant I would get what I wanted most. Of course I wanted Chris to be a constant presence in Zack’s life, but I wanted Zack to be with me as much as possible, since like every other working mom I suffer the gentle heartache of being apart from him during the day. I knew I would put up with any amount of personal discomfort to avoid having to spend an entire weekend without my son.
So not much changed in Zack’s routine when Chris packed up and moved away. Zack’s father was still there for him three evenings a week, playing with him on the living room floor, reading him bedtime stories, putting him to bed. Zack’s being so young had bought Chris and me time to figure out what the shape of our new life would be. It also allowed me to gain perspective before I had to tell Zack a story about his father and me. I could help him put all the pieces into place in his head long after they had arranged themselves in mine.
A few weeks after Chris had moved out, I was upstairs with Zack, taking him through the paces of his bedtime ritual: a story, followed by snuggling in the rocking chair, and then into his crib for a good night’s sleep. As I laid him down this night, Zack looked up at me and asked, “Daddy?” I felt my heart catch in my throat. It’s rare to be so aware of one of Life’s Big Moments presenting itself to you, but here it was, right in front of me. I reminded myself that even married parents are not both at home all day and night every day. Then I said the simplest things that I knew were true: “Daddy’s not here right now, sweetie. You’ll see him tomorrow. But he loves you very much.”
I resisted the urge to say more while I leaned over the crib and rubbed Zack’s back, because there wasn’t more to say. Not anything that would have made sense to my nineteen-month-old son. As I stood there in my own silence, I felt that I was suspended in a perfect, still moment of ambiguity.
And then I had a brainstorm. “You know who else loves you? Grandma and Grandpa love you, and Grandma Barb loves you, even though they’re not here right now.” I went on, “Uncle Scott and Aunt Kelly love you, and Kim loves you, and Stephen and Julia, too…” I named everyone in Zack’s universe who cared about him. Who cared about us, and me. I was consoled by the thought that lots and lots of people love your child along with you, no matter how lonely it can feel to be a single parent.
I was finding my footing as a parent, and learning to improvise around the hole in my life in a way that felt good and true. That night I went to bed wrapped in a gentle haze of pride.
Zack took to this new little nighttime ritual instantly. Each evening as I laid him down on the changing table to put on his pajamas, he’d look up at me and say, “Annnnnd…,” coaxing me to start the roll call of all the people in this big wide world who loved him. As he grew older and spoke more, he started filling in the blanks himself; I’d start with one name, and he’d call out the rest of the names that made up the group, whether husband, wife, partner, children, dogs, or the single friend alone. Every night as we did this I was reminded that families come in all shapes and sizes, and that this was the world that Zack was growing up in. It was time for me to stop mourning the loss of the mommy-daddy-baby family unit and realize that what made the three of us a family was up to us — and that Chris and I were in the midst of creating that, together, even though we were apart.
This, to me, was a challenging notion. We were no longer a family and yet we were still going to be a family. These truths did not cancel each other out in the way it seemed they must. I knew that keeping both ideas in my head at the same time, finding that tensile point where they were both true, was my pathway to eventually being able to let go of my grief.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stacy Morrison, author of Falling Apart in One Piece: One Optimist’s Journey Through the Hell of Divorce (Copyright © 2010 by Stacy Morrison), was formerly editor in chief of Redbook magazine, executive editor at Marie Claire, and editor in chief of Modern Bride. She has appeared as an expert on women, love, sex, money, and more on Today, CNN Moneyline, and The Early Show, among many other television programs. Stacy lives in Brooklyn with her son, Zack.
MORE ARTICLES BY THE AUTHOR
LEARN MORE
- Read Chapter 1 of Falling Apart in One Piece
- Watch the video: Stacy Morrison on the words she uses too much
- A conversation with Stacy Morrison about divorce, being a single mom, and finding balance in life
