I walk around my backyard feeling out of place, overcome with a sense of grief. This is no longer my home. This place, where my children used to play, where my chickens roamed free, where I labored to create “our space"…it is no longer mine. That is the nature of divorce.

My name might still be on the mortgage and some of the bills; so, I maintain rights to the house, but it is no longer mine nor is it my home. Taking a slow stroll around the large yard, I say a silent good bye to the memories, to the good times, and the bad.

The club house, which he always hated, has been reduced to a pile of broken pallets. I am sure it was the first to go. The chickens are long gone but I few eggs remain in and around the coop, a reminder of my feathered friends. They must be months old, harboring a stench so vile, its criminal. I contemplate carefully disposing of them so they don’t break and unleash their villainous attack on the olfactory senses, but decide against it. If he accidentally cracks them, the kids and I wont be around anyway.

I miss my chickens, especially BlackBerry, who was eaten by his dog. Finding out Midnight froze to death in the winter because she couldn’t be caught and sold with the rest of my flock, breaks my heart. Discovering her blue egg under the coop is bitter sweet, but thinking of it cracking and her getting her revenge from beyond the grave brings a wicked smirk to my face. She was just the type of girl to leave behind a rotten egg! Even in death, her personality shines through.

So, I move along and leave her parting gift untouched. My son's salad garden, once full of greens and carrots, is a patch of grass covered in twigs (which I think are the remnants of his bolted mustard and parsley). The fencing has been removed and one would be hard pressed to imagine a vivacious garden existed in the spot a year ago. It is a physical representation of the circumstances, a somber reminder of how much has changed.

As I feel myself slipping into a state of deep sadness and struggling to let go, I focus on the bright red orb that has sprung up in the middle of what was once the garden. I don’t remember planting red cabbage…. It isn’t a cabbage, but something similar. Realizing it is a humungous radicchio, the biggest I have ever seen, I start to laugh. The radicchio never made it bigger than a small brussel sprout. It was the favorite of some insect and constantly suffered because of it. How did it manage to survive to this size?

This small bowling ball of a radicchio must be here for me, a loud proclamation of what can be. Our life is changing, the future will be vastly different from our past, but the kids and I are resilient. Like this crazy radicchio, when everything around us fades away, we continue to grow. Now, it is time for me to let go and to grow. I will make the next house our home and soon, the kids and I will bloom.