When I had my youngest child, I was newly separated from a wayward spouse.

Going to nursing school full time, pregnant, working full time, I had to move from my two story home into an 800 square foot apartment. Just two bedrooms, my sons shared a room, and I had the baby crib in my room.

I was a thousand miles from my family, and didn’t have much more than a crappy car and a few possessions to my name.

And three children under the age of ten.

Hard times, to be certain.

The irony is when things are that difficult, you don’t have time to focus on your feelings. It’s pure survival mode.

I had a newborn to nurture, a three year old who was very bright and active, and a ten year old going through an acute illness.

Too much? No choice.

I was running morning, noon, and night.

I cannot remember details of this time of my life. There are bits and pieces that will flash through my memory…asking the father for formula and diapers, only to be denied. Having no way to buy either. Carting the kids and the laundry through the snow to the laundry mat. Praying for my car to start on more occasions than I can remember.

Everything I had and was went into my children. I was trying to better myself so they could have a decent life.

No child of mine ever had a nursery – hand me down bassinets had to do. Cribs came from the church. Three kids, and only one baby shower between them, thrown by my church when I was a desperately poor mother of two with a baby on the way.

I look at the abundance that my grandsons have now, I am happy for them.

More importantly, they are all being raised in intact families, with parents committed to marriage and fidelity.

My fervent prayer is that it will ever be so for all of them. May the blight of divorce end here.

(Latona and Her Children Apollo and Diana, by W.H. Rinehart, currently on display at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art)