Beautiful Ruins by Isabella

Beautiful Ruins by Isabella - December 2024 Scholarship Essay

When my parents separated after 28 years of marriage, I was 19, caught in the turmoil of conflicting emotions. As an Orthodox Christian, I was raised to believe that marriage was a sacred, unbreakable bond. Divorce wasn’t something we discussed in our faith, and it certainly wasn’t something I ever anticipated happening to my family. When it did, it wasn’t the idea of divorce itself that hit hardest—it was the realization that they had both reached a point where it felt like the end was unavoidable.

For years, I had watched them argue, but I always assumed they would work things out, like they always had before. I thought they would go to counseling, maybe talk it out like they had in the past. But when they finally went through with the divorce, it was something I just couldn’t understand. The finality of it shocked me. It was as if everything I thought I knew about love and family had been upended in an instant.

The emotional impact was overwhelming. It wasn’t just the loss of my parents’ relationship that hurt—it was the pain I saw in both of them. My mother, who had always been strong, seemed to crumble in front of me. She was lost, devastated, and the weight of her sadness was almost too much to bear. Watching her in that state was painful, and I didn’t know how to help her. At the same time, my father, too, seemed to carry an unspoken sadness, as if he had shut down emotionally. The people I had known to be stable and strong were now in pieces, and I couldn’t find my footing in a world that felt so shaken.

During that time, I struggled with depression. The days blurred together in a haze of sadness and confusion. I found it hard to accept what was happening, and I had no idea how to process my emotions. To cope, I turned to shopping—a temporary distraction that gave me a fleeting sense of control. The brief rush of serotonin was my way of trying to escape the overwhelming sadness that weighed me down. But no matter how much I bought, it never lasted. The emptiness returned, and I was left with a sense of guilt for trying to fill it with something that wasn’t real.

Through all of this, my brother and I leaned on each other. We didn’t talk much about how we were feeling at first, but the unspoken bond between us became stronger as we navigated this new reality together. One night, we had a conversation that changed everything. We realized that our mom had made such a big sacrifice by moving to Florida, leaving behind her family in Pittsburgh. If we didn’t stick together, if we didn’t embrace the new version of our family, then it would feel like all of her sacrifices had been in vain. We knew we had to be there for each other, for her, and for the family we still had, even if it wasn’t the same as before.

That moment became the turning point for me. I began to understand that a separated family is still a family, even if it looks different. It wasn’t easy, and there were many moments of sadness and loss, but we started to rebuild our relationship in new ways. I worked on accepting the changes, knowing that while my parents’ marriage was over, their love for me and my brother was not.

Faith also played an important role in helping me heal. It was difficult at first to reconcile my beliefs with what was happening in my family. In our faith, marriage is meant to be a lifelong commitment, and the idea of divorce was something I hadn’t prepared myself for. But through prayer and reflection, I came to understand that God’s love is not bound by human imperfection. Though my parents’ marriage ended, it didn’t mean that love had disappeared—it just meant that love took on a different form, one that would require time to heal and adapt.

Looking back, I can see how far I’ve come since that painful time. My brother and I are closer than ever, and my mom, though still healing, is finding strength in herself. The experience, though difficult, taught me valuable lessons about resilience, the importance of family, and how to embrace change. While the pain of that loss still lingers, it no longer defines me. Instead, it’s a reminder of how love, even in its many forms, endures.