Chapter 17 - New Beginnings

Summary

In 1989, my life changed completely once again. I was in Boston doing some work for the Contemporary Music Project and was expecting Carol to come home at the end of April from Florida. When we talked on the phone, she told me that she would be home a day earlier. I cut my visit to Boston short and met her when she returned. We went out to dinner, and when we returned to the car to go home, she told me that she had decided that we needed to get a divorce immediately. She had been thinking about her life and how it was always overshadowed by mine; at this point she wanted her own life to be her major focus. I could not have been more surprised by her decision, and we talked for a long time, but with no changed result. Her mind was made up, and there was no way to alter it.

We went to a lawyer the next day, but after hearing our reasons for divorce, he said that he could not take a case like that since he did not see a good cause for this split. A friend of ours suggested another lawyer and, after seeing her, she agreed to take the case. We tried for an “amicable” divorce, but I guess that this is an oxymoron. Everyone in our family, including the children, got hurt in the pro-cess. However, we settled as well as we could in accordance with the laws of the State of New York and divided all assets, with Carol keeping the place in Florida and me keeping the house in Rochester. I must admit that I was devastated by the divorce, but never regretted any part of the more than twenty-nine good years Carol and I were together. Our union produced two wonderful girls whom I love more than I can ever put into words. The only thing I could do after these events was steepmyself in work and try to heal.

I must say that I had a great deal of support from my family, Bob Freeman, and many members of the faculty to whom I was close. Even the student body responded to my dilemma by asking me to be the baccalaureate speaker at the 1989 graduation.