It always seems that when an unplanned event occurs we manage to miss another opportunity.  For instance, you may miss your bus and also the unexpected office meeting or you misplace your cell phone and within the 20 minutes you take to find it you miss the car accident up the road.  Some people may take these events as coincidences but I take them as they were supposed to happen.
    I believe that everything happens for a reason and maybe I was late to miss the meeting because the negative message was not made for me to hear or maybe I missed that car accident on route 1 two days ago because it was not my time to go.  Whatever my friend fate has in store for me I believe it knows best what I need based on the many unplanned and unimagined experiences that have entered my life.  While out with my mother on Saturday I thought about my parent’s divorce and how all of that came to be for a reason.
    My parents divorced when I was a 19, a sophomore in college.  During my high school years my brother had left for ESU and my parents were both working; my mother first shift and my father second shift.  I stayed home with my mother who eventually began staying out later and later.  I never thought much of it until my parents began to sleep in separate bedrooms which eventually became separate lives.  During a college break at home my dad broke the news and soon after my mother moved out.  Although it has been almost six years since their divorce and both my parents are remarried, it still pains me to think they never recovered to continue past 28 years of marriage.  For the longest time I took their decision for face value.  They could not forgive, they no longer got along, they found there to be no reason to remain married, they gave up, etc so they decided to just divorce.  It was all cut and dry and I was supposed to move on.  It was not until recent that I began asking myself what all of it meant for me.  What their divorce could not only teach me but positively change about me.
    Anyone who knows me, and my family, knows my mother loves cats.  Philadelphia was holding the annual International Cat Show at the convention center so I decided to take her.  I find myself to be more of a dog person but any way to bond with my mother is something I have started to do ever since she left the home.  When I was growing up my mother and I did not have a close relationship.  I found her to be judgmental and critical many of the things I said, how I dressed, who I spoke to, what I watched on television, almost everything.  Growing up in a traditional Asian American home my father was the disciplinarian and provider, my mother was to be nurturing and care for the children.  I went to my father for everything as he picked me up from school everyday and helped me with my homework.  So my relationship with my mother never fully bloomed.  And when I became a teenager I spent more time arguing with her about the different colors in my hair and piercings on my face than any positive interactions.  I loved my mom the way every child did but I did not “like” my mom.  As time passed and I became an adult I was home less because of school and ultimately fell into who I was supposed to be.  My tastes and attitude changed and when my mother remarried into her new home I came to understand her.
    During all the times she was critical and judgmental of the creativity on my face and in my clothing she acted so out of fear.  She came to this country without the notion of American culture and while I was growing up she was learning same time as me all about what it means to be an American.  As I grew older I grasped onto the concept much quicker and in a much different way.  Her ideas were based on watching Friends and looking at Vogue magazine, mine were based on KoRn videos and bad MTV.  Like any parent, seeing your child decked out in studded belts and riding around on a skateboard with grungy kids is scary.  It brings up the unanswered questions about drugs, sex and juvenile criminal records.  I believe with my mom it was amplified because some parents have the comfort of looking back at their childhoods and remembering their rebellious, teen pop-cultured days to cope, but my mom only had the memories of war and what it felt like to be separated from her family.  While she did not understand my raggedy clothes and loud music, she also did not understand it was a phase and she would eventually get me back to wearing dresses and letting her listen to Celine Dion in the car.  When I came to recognize all of this I respected my mom a lot more and viewed her to be a strong woman I take all of my assertive qualities from and blessed to have in my life.
    Due to my parent’s divorce I now spend more time with her, learning about her and finding out many things about myself.  While we mostly discuss shopping, her cats and my dog I have to come to find that my mom and I may have never spent so much time together if it were not for the divorce.  I may have continued viewing my mother as overly critical and never understanding.  I may have continued taking her for granted and never invited her to cat shows or taken her out to the spa on her birthday or went to Vegas and bought her tons of mojitos.  All of the tears shed acknowledging my parent’s marriage was over created clarity for me to have a greater relationship with my mom.

Life can be really hurtful.  It likes to kick us when we are down and sometimes kick us in our asses until we fall down.  Whatever the painful circumstances may be life can be tragic but in retrospect it can be easy and we make it harder by never trying to get back up.