I heard somewhere that over 40% of marriages end in divorce. I don't know how much of that number is due to manipulation by special interest groups to challenge us to be more cautious when choosing a spouse, but I do know that the shocking figure scared me into thinking that my parents could separate...at any moment. 

There was a brief period when I feared that one day, my father would do something so "asinine" - my mother's favorite adjective to describe her husband - that she would throw in the towel on their twenty-plus year relationship. More recently, I awaited the day I would get a phone call informing me that my father had decided that my mother's alcoholism had eliminated the "better" from their marriage and sent him running from the "worse." But my parents' marriage has endured through it all.

Except for one day, three years ago.

The sun was just beginning to show its face above the horizon. The Indiana corn and soybeans were gearing up for another day of July sunshine; I was gearing up for a new life 500 miles south with a man I had convinced myself I loved. My parents were less than pleased.

My father had voiced his opinion pretty strongly when Charles proposed to me after a mere six months of dating, but his voice had decrescendoed in the months following. On this particular July morning, as I prepared to set out for the great unknown in the wilds of Georgia, I searched in vain for the man whose voice I had tuned out.

I stood aside a U-HAUL and watched my mother and oldest brother step out of their car. I offered a bittersweet smile to my mom and prepared another for my father. But there was no one else in the car.

"Where's Dad?" I asked, struggling to keep the tears out of my words.

My mother's voice was very quiet, "He couldn't make it." Her lack of eye contact gave me all the explanation I needed.

My parents had become part of the statistic - if just for that handful of moments. And in my heart I knew - beneath all the childish anger I felt in response to my father's spurn - that I was to blame.

In the months that followed my departure, I evaded my father and any mention of him. I stubbornly resisted his influence, telling myself that I would never forgive him for abandoning my mother and me that morning. But over time, my father's whispers started to return to my life...crescendoing as I grew out of childish misconceptions about love and realized the wrongness of my circumstances. 

I doubt that I will ever forget my parents' morning divorce. Or would I choose to. Today, I remember that morning and thank my parents for sacrificing their union. For without their divorce, chances are I would be getting one of my own.