CHAPTER 5: KARMA MANAGEMENT§
Managing Life after Our Parents’ Divorce§
I was so relieved when Dad finally moved out. In fact, I had no problem helping him carry his stuff to the car. I know that’s a horrible thing to say, but it’s the truth. My little sister Kavita cried when he left, but I didn’t shed a tear. §
It was over.§
Finished. §
Done. §
So we thought and hoped and prayed.§
I first noticed Mom and Dad had issues ten years back when I was only six. I didn’t even know what it was about, just that I didn’t like it when they argued in the kitchen. They stopped yelling when Kavita started crying, and for a while they tried to hide their fights from both of us. She was only four and didn’t understand what was going on. She would know soon enough—it wasn’t long before their disagreements were common knowledge to all of us. It was money, relatives, what Mom made for dinner—just about anything and everything. Some days I thought they would fight over the last apple in the fridge. §
The one thing I never did see was physical violence, to my relief. I had heard plenty of stories about that sort of thing from other kids at school. §
When Dad finally moved out, I felt set free. I was sure our home life would improve. §
Well, “Silly me,” as my little sister would say.§
I knew plenty of kids at school whose parents had divorced. After all, half of all marriages in the US end that way, leaving one million kids a year in “broken homes” just like mine was now. §
My friend Alex got so upset about his parents’ divorce that he started getting in serious trouble. His mom actually had to take him out of school. I have no idea where he is now. He might be in jail, for all I know. §
Don, a year older than me, became completely withdrawn. He didn’t even want to talk to his old friends anymore. He had found out his parents were in a custody battle over him. It wasn’t what you might think—the fight was because neither one of them wanted him! That sent Don to a really dark place inside himself. Everybody worried about him, and some people were afraid he might try to kill himself. I tried to stay close and console him, but it was hard because he was so unwilling to communicate.§
The school soon learned my parents were splitting up. There’s a lot of legal stuff involved—who can pick us up at school, who is responsible for medical permissions, and so on. Once two divorced parents showed up at the same time to pick up their daughters, Jane and Denise, and got into such a big fight that the principal called the police. What a mess! The mother was arrested for assault, and both parents were banned from the school. After that those poor girls kept getting weird looks. Most of us were able to keep our parents’ divorces more or less private, but for them it was public knowledge, and people did talk, the kind of talk that doesn’t help anyone involved. §
Mrs. Burte, the school counselor, invited us to join one of the “children of divorce” meetings they hold during sixth period. The meetings were useful, but I couldn’t help noticing something—even those who seemed to be coping well had this big empty space inside them that anyone could feel. Of course, some were far worse at handling it than others. One kid cried at every meeting. Others were really good at hiding it. Once, shortly after a meeting, I went to the washroom and Pete was in there crying and yelling. Then some teacher unfamiliar with his situation came in and yelled at him some more. The kid couldn’t win.§
“Sushil,” Mrs. Burte told me at the first meeting, “It’s not your fault.” Then later, “Don’t take sides.” And, “You can deal with this.” Good advice, as far as it went. But saying it or hearing it was a long way from actually feeling it or acting on it. §
I’m not complaining; those meetings meant a lot to me and Kavita. They were one of the things that helped us keep it together. For me, even having Kavita there was a good thing. I felt like I had a new role some days: her substitute dad. And as I got a grip on my own situation, I like to think I helped some other kids, too.§
Because we’re Hindus, the two of us responded differently to the divorce than other kids. I knew from my Hinduism classes that whatever comes to me in my life is part of my karma. So does that mean the divorce was my fault? Or that I deserved this? §
Those questions gnawed at me as the full fallout of the divorce became clear. §
First of all, childhood was over for Kavita and me. So were “Mom and Dad,” because these two people, each now leading the independent lives they apparently so wanted, were not the same anymore. “Mom and Dad” were gone. In their place were “Madhu” and “Nikhil,” two people I thought I knew but obviously did not. §
I learned from the other kids in our meetings that before long Mom and Dad might each start a new relationship—even remarry—and we might suddenly have a step mom and step dad. For Dad, that might already be starting; Mom had always suspected he was fond of Rekha, his pretty and much younger secretary. Was she going to become my step mom? The very woman who broke up our family? §
This was definitely not going to be easy. Go ahead, google “wicked stepmother.” You’ll get half a million hits. “Evil stepmother” will get you another quarter million—so don’t tell me it isn’t something to worry about. §
Another recurring worry was that when we grew up we wouldn’t be able to keep our own marriages together, or would even get married. In the back of my mind, I wondered if it would be easier for me to divorce someday, rationalizing, “If Dad did it, so can I.” Kavita was frightened of the thought of getting married. The prospect of one day becoming a single mom didn’t sit well with her. She started trying harder in school, convinced that she should get a solid profession, just in case. The ordeal of experiencing a divorce eroded our confidence in marriage as a lasting institution. We saw first hand how it can fail.§
A month after our parents separated, Uncle Shivesh, my father’s brother, returned from a year’s posting at his company’s headquarters in India. He was our favorite uncle and had been an important part of our religious life ever since we went on pilgrimage with him three years ago to some of the most sacred temples in South India. That was so incredible, one of the greatest experiences of my life. It was the first time I really felt like a bona-fide practicing Hindu, especially on the morning I sat in the great Siva temple of Tiruvannamalai and felt an overwhelmingly powerful blessing during the puja. I mean, I had been to pujas all my life, and I enjoyed the temple, but I had never experienced anything like that. §
After the puja, we spent time wandering throughout the labyrinth of stone. Without Uncle catching on, Kavita and I managed to play a subtle game of hide and seek amongst the stone pillars. Uncle almost panicked when he and I couldn’t find Kavita for about ten minutes. I played along that I thought she was lost. Uncle finally caught on we were messing with him, and we all had a good laugh.§
The day after he arrived back from India, Uncle took the two of us out—not for ice cream or a movie, but to the Ganesha temple. He had a special archana done for us there. He tried to hide it, but it was obvious he was upset about the breakup. He knew what it meant more than we did, and what else might come. §
We found a quiet place and sat together on the floor to talk.§
“I’m so sorry to hear about your parents. How are you two doing?”§
“Not too well,” I had to reply. “I know other kids of divorced parents in school, and I don’t want to end up with their problems. What happened, anyway? Aren’t Hindu couples supposed to stay married for life? Isn’t there a big ceremony when they promise that to each other?”§
“Yes, it’s called a wedding, Sushil,” he said dryly, while smiling. “Christian marriages are also meant to be for life, or they used to be anyway. I heard they changed the vows now, because of so many divorces—no more ‘until death do us part.’ And even carefully arranged marriages like your parents’ don’t always work out. It’s the stress of modern life. Things have changed a lot.”§
“Like what?”§
“Extended family, mainly. In India, the four of you wouldn’t have been living all by yourselves in your own house. Your father’s parents, married brothers and their wives, unmarried sisters and all manner of children would have been all in one big house. That’s changing in India, and the divorce rate is rising fast there, because the joint family was a major stabilizing force for marriage. Always there was a trusted elder, a brother or sister to talk to, an auntie to help a couple through rough times. But very little of all that is present here in the West.”§
“Right, but what do we do with this mess? Is it some kind of karmic payback? That’s what I learned in Hinduism class.” I trusted that Uncle Shivesh wouldn’t take my bluntness for disrespect.§
“A good question, and a big topic. We’ll talk about it now. Then I will ask your mother if we can meet here every Saturday afternoon for a while. I like being in the temple; I think the Gods can hear us.”§
“So is it payback, or not?” I insisted. §
“Our Guruji talks about karma management, by which he means dealing with rough situations in life. Of course, all the good situations are also the result of karma, but no one ever complains about them, or worries about how to manage them!”§
We both laughed, and I felt a little better. After all, we were blood relatives, Uncle and us, and there was no divorce procedure for that relationship. We trusted him to be there.§
“To answer your question,” he went on, “yes, it is your karma and in some sense you ‘caused’ it to happen, but—actually there are several ‘buts.’ First, you didn’t cause the divorce to happen through actions in this life, which many children think, especially if they are young. It’s natural for young ones to blame themselves, even when they really had nothing to do with it.”§
“My sister and I have certainly caused our parents grief from time to time.”§
“Sure, but that’s their karma coming back! You did not cause their divorce in this life. But, ‘cause’ within the idea of karma is a broad concept. When people say, ‘I caused it,’ they mean they did something to directly change a situation.”§
“That certainly happened to our family. I overheard one of Mom’s friends tell Mom why she dumped her husband, basically encouraging Mom to do the same. Why would she do that?”§
“Good question. Sometimes people say things like that to justify their own behavior. I can tell you for sure that karma will come back to her one day.”§
“You mean, by convincing someone else divorce is the right thing to do, she was also convincing herself she did the right thing?”§
“Exactly—you’ve got it.” Uncle was silent for a moment. He looked sad. “It is also possible to cause something by doing nothing when you should have done something.”§
“You mean, like why didn’t Mom and Dad’s friends and relatives step in to help more?”§
Uncle paused, obviously evaluating his own response to the family problems. “I tried as I could, but being posted in India, I was just so busy, such long hours, the time difference….”§
“Uncle, it wasn’t your fault,” Kavita said softly.§
“Thank you, Kavita, I appreciate that you’re able to console someone else. But you’re the person who’s been hurt here. What’s happening to you and Sushil is your karma, not in the sense of blame, but in the sense of being an experience to learn from. Guruji often tells us ‘Karma is our teacher.’ That’s the best way to look at this huge change in your life. It’s time to go now. We’ll meet again next Saturday.”§
“Thank you, Uncle, this has meant a lot to us.”§
We went back to Mom’s house, which was good because we had our own rooms there. Dad could only afford a small apartment, so Kavita and I had to share a bedroom when we visited. The whole situation was so inconvenient. Were we supposed to have two entire sets of clothes, one for each place? And two sets of power adaptors for our computers and other gadgets? Two toothbrushes, two bicycles, two pairs of boots? But the most difficult thing for us was the two different sets of rules and expectations. Dad was more lenient on homework, but Mom was more lenient on bedtime. Lots of things like that. We always had to stop and think, “Where are we today? What are the rules here?” And what difference did these silly rules make anyway, when they had broken the biggest rule by getting divorced? Why should we do what either of them say?§
I gave Uncle’s talk a lot of thought, and Kavita and I discussed it that night while Mom was busy in the kitchen. We both understood this was an experience we needed to learn from. But it was very difficult not to blame Mom and Dad for the divorce. What did they think when they were getting married? That they would try living together and see how they liked it? Then having two children, was that just a casual experiment also? You would think children would make the relationship permanent, wouldn’t you?§
Thanks to Uncle, I understood this was not a situation I was going to fix. It wasn’t like standing up to some bully and getting him to back off, or teaching a child to stop teasing kittens. I couldn’t say, “Bad Mommy! Bad Daddy! You stop this and get remarried right now!” It was too late, the karma had already manifested full force and I would just have to deal with it for myself and my sister as best I could. §
Several of the kids at our school counseling sessions were really angry with whichever parent they thought caused the divorce. Martin, in particular, blamed his father for the family’s break up and wanted revenge. He told us that when his dad remarried, he would make the new step mom’s life as miserable as possible. I asked Uncle about this at our next meeting in the temple.§
“It’s a common reaction; but really, what good does it do? All the mean things Martin is saying and doing to his father are just creating more karma for himself. It’s rare that a divorce is strictly one-sided. But if his dad really was to blame, then the karma will return to him one day.”§
“Understanding karma does make it easier to handle injustice, doesn’t it,” observed Kavita. “We know things happen for a reason and don’t feel like we always need to take matters into our own hands.”§
“Yes, that’s right,” Uncle said. “And when we understand karma, we are able to forgive the person.” §
“I don’t want to retaliate against Dad,” Kavita said, “even though I do blame him the most. When I see him, he looks so sad. But forgive him? I don’t know if I can do that.”§
“It takes a very brave and understanding person to forgive someone who has wronged them, no doubt about it. Give it some time.”§
The subject of forgiveness came up in our next school counseling session, and the group was divided. Some said they had found it in their hearts to forgive both parents; others said they would never forgive either of them for the pain they caused. It was sometimes hard for me to figure out if everyone in those sessions was sincere, or if some just said stuff because they thought Mrs. Burte wanted to hear it. §
It took me a long time to forgive my parents, but I found a certain peace when I finally did. I could forgive them, but I didn’t condone what they had done. The divorce was hardest on Kavita, really, because we ended up mostly with Mom, while Dad grew more distant over time. She was at the age when a girl really needs her father. I needed him, too, I had to admit.§
When I left for college and started living on campus, the pain lessened, because the aftermath of the divorce was no longer a daily experience. I did choose a college close to home, though, because I didn’t want to leave my sister completely on her own. It was now clear that both our parents would likely remarry, and I knew that would be hard for Kavita to deal with.§
We had seen a lot of different reactions from the kids in our counseling sessions, few of which we wanted to imitate. Uncle had better answers. Yes, this was our karma to experience, with lessons to be learned that would help us handle future challenges in life. We couldn’t improve the situation by blaming others or complaining about our troubles or by being mean—that would only create more negative karma. Better to react with all the kindness and forgiveness we could muster, and resolve to not do this to our own kids.§
One day, about five years after the big D, we were together with Uncle again. Kavita hadn’t said a word for an hour, letting Uncle and me do all the talking. §
Suddenly she asked, “Uncle, can you explain to me how Indian arranged marriages are set up?”§
Her question surprised me, but Uncle was even more surprised. “I would be honored, Kavita. I was afraid after your parents’ divorce that both of you would be soured on marriage.”§
“I’m not saying I’m even sure I want to get married, or even if I will fall in love with someone. But I’ve had several crushes that I thought were love, only they didn’t last very long. I’m so glad I never got deeply involved with any of those boys! Arranged marriage does seem like a more scientific system, where many factors are considered in advance, and the couple makes a decision based on more than just emotions. People spend more time researching the next car or computer they want to buy than the person they intend to create a family with! I’ve got friends my age who are already divorced! I’m not going to visit that karma on my children.”§
“Well, Kavita, to arrange a marriage, I need to put the word out through our relatives and friends that we’re looking—and I do mean we, because any prospect has to get past me first! And I do hope you’ll find it in your heart to involve your parents in the choice. We will check family background, education, health, personality, shared goals, looks and astrological compatibility. It will be a bit of a process, but if we do it right, we will find the right man for you.”§
“Thank you, Uncle, I look forward to it!”§