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Choosing Love Through Divorce, Family, and Loss
When I look back on my first marriage, I remember so many wonderful experiences. We shared laughter, adventures, meaningful moments, and the joy of raising our two sons together.
I also remember the small experiences and growing awareness that gradually led me toward a different life. I felt increasingly drawn to the mountains of Alabama, to new friendships, new relationships, and to discovering more about who I was becoming.
Eventually, I knew that my marriage needed to end.
Divorce is rarely easy, even when we know it is the right decision. There are disappointments, sadness, uncertainty, and often a great deal of hurt.
But I knew one thing very clearly: I didn’t want to go to court and fight with my husband.
Instead, we chose mediation.
We found an excellent mediator who listened carefully to both of us and helped us understand where we needed to compromise. Together, we worked toward an agreement that respected each of our needs.
Looking back, I see that decision as an act of Love.
It didn’t erase the pain of ending our marriage, but it helped create a foundation for something that would become extraordinarily important to both of us: continuing to be parents, friends, and family.
By then, I had moved to the mountains of Alabama, where I owned several acres of forest and a little cabin tucked into the woods.
I remember walking that land every day, crying as I grieved the ending of my marriage.
For an entire year, the tears came.
I didn’t try to stop them or judge myself for feeling so much sadness. I understood that grief was part of my healing. I could choose Love and still feel heartbroken. One did not cancel out the other.
And slowly, life began opening in new directions.
On Christmas Eve in 2002, a man named Ted drove down my long driveway through the woods.
That Christmas Eve marked the beginning of a relationship that has continued to invite both of us to open our hearts—not only to each other, but to our past marriages, our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and now the wonderful news that we will soon be great-great-grandparents!
But one of the most beautiful parts of our story is what happened with my first husband, Andy.
Rather than allowing divorce to divide our family, we continued choosing ways to remain connected.
We went on family vacations together with our children and grandchildren. We cared for grandchildren together. We shared accommodations for family weddings, and when Ted and I traveled through Birmingham, we often stayed at Andy’s house.
And something wonderful happened between Ted and Andy.
From the moment they met, they just got each other.
They genuinely enjoyed each other’s company and became good friends.
Over the years, our family grew into something that might have looked unusual to other people, but felt entirely natural to us.
We were family.
Not because we had avoided hurt or difficulty, but because we continued choosing connection, kindness, and care.
When Andy developed multiple myeloma, those choices took on an even deeper meaning.
He wanted Ted and me to accompany him to a hospital meeting where information about his illness and treatment would be shared. We visited him as often as we could during his hospitalization and recovery.
Following a bone marrow transplant, Andy suffered a devastating fall that left him paralyzed and dependent on a ventilator. When it became clear that he was unlikely to recover, he made the heartbreaking decision to discontinue life support.
He asked Ted and me, along with our friend Jane, to come to Fort Wayne, Indiana, to join the family gathered around him as he approached the end of his life.
And we went.
I think about that often.
The man I had once married, the father of our children, had remained part of our lives through all the changes and challenges that followed our divorce. And Ted, the man who had become my husband, was there too.
There was room for all of us in that circle of Love.
Looking back, I can see how, over and over again, we collectively chose Love rather than separation, bitterness, or resentment.
Was it always easy? Of course not.
We experienced hurt feelings, disagreements, sadness, and all the complicated emotions that come with being human.
But we learned that we didn’t have to make those feelings our permanent home.
The hurts were real, but they weren’t where we wanted to live.
We wanted to live in Love.
That meant practicing forgiveness, accepting one another’s imperfections, making room for change, and remembering to laugh together.
It meant recognizing that families don’t always look the way we originally imagined they would.
And it meant understanding that the ending of a marriage doesn’t necessarily have to mean the ending of Love.
I don’t believe being a Lovist exempts us from painful experiences. Life will continue to bring unexpected changes, losses, and challenges.
But I do believe that we can choose how we meet those experiences.
For me, learning to see life through the lens of Love has made all the difference.
Love doesn’t make every experience easy. It gives us another way to live through it.