wish I had another chance’...

"It didn't work out… "

Ha… so easy to say, especially if it’s a narration of how and why they’re separating.

One just had to see the pain hidden behind that statement, the remorse and that feeling ‘wish I had another chance’, as they proclaim in false bravery that everything will be over soon.

These were the people, who, in all their wise and matured judgment had weighed every option, before taking that all important decision of their lives. ‘All Important’ as in ALL IMPORTANT’. It was as all important a decision as the previous all important decisions of their lives they had taken to come together and live happily ever after. Now, while opting to separate, they’d weighed every option, or so they thought.

Mustering enough strength to take that decision and finding enough reasons for it, they went about gathering evidences and witnesses to prove that they can’t live together any more. The mandatory two years they’ve been just doing that, nothing else, finding evidences, so the family court judge passes the judgment in their favor. Trying to remember those occasions, places where they felt most insulted. How the worst behavior was meted out. Trying to catch-up those who were witness to those scenes, to convince them that they should corroborate in court. And then there was that one small matter, who gets the possession of the child and that of alimony, maintenance, who pays whom and how much etc.

As the Day of Judgment neared, they went on a flashback to find whether they had submitted enough evidences. Yes, their Lawyer had convinced them, no way the judge will be able to keep them together.

‘Marriages are made in heaven’ and here they were breaking it up.

The flashback took them back, a whole way back. Those moments of their lives etched in the happy part of their memories. That memorable wedding ceremony, the first night and then off the next day for a week long honeymoon, all came back in a flash. Moving into their own house, honeymoon stretching a few more years, and three years later that greatest gift a couple can have, a child. Those cherished moments of bringing up that child, now 12 years old.

They meet occasionally now, for that someone very special in their lives, their child, linked to them unbreakably. Whose life, in all probability, they’ll mar for life. Inflict a wound on their child that’ll never cure, that’ll pain forever. That’ll leave a gap in the child’s life that’ll never get filled up, ever. To be branded as a single parent child, or…

So what happened that they have reached here in the family court, waiting for the pronouncement of judgment, they wondered. Will it be really over today, now? 15 years of marriage. Deep in conversation with their respective Lawyers, they stole a look at each other, hoping that the other wasn’t watching. Their eyes meet, eyes with pain in them and welled up with tears.

Suddenly the bailiff’s voice reverberated in the courtroom ‘all rise’.

As they sat down, they heard the court clerk shouting case no. 237/2007...

They both stood up along with their Lawyers for the pronouncement.

Judge’s voice boomed “…Therefore, this court, in view of all the evidences presented, is of the view…

Stunned silence!!! They looked at each other in disbelief.

The judge, after announcing that copies of the judgment will be available a week later, walked out.

As the judge’s voice still reverberated in their ears
“… Legal Separation cannot be allowed, and further directs…”
they were not listening any more, they ran towards each other, tears in their eyes, and embraced...


                                                                     -Ken Featherlite