Broken Pieces Once Again Made Whole

Multigenre Memoir Project

Tracy Icenhour

12/03/2009

A Broken Home

Diary Entry• Tracy Jane• Dear Diary,• Broken promises, dreams lost, home half empty, the feeling of safety gone. Oh such

confusion, what has happened? I just don’t understand. Why is he leaving? What did we do? •

November 13,2009• I will never forget when I was 8 years old, the year was 1977. My family fell apart.

Even today 32 years later I can still feel the sadness, the fear, and the shame. Even though dad said he was not leaving us that he was only leaving mom, in reality he left us all.

• I thought marriage was forever, that’s what the vow says- so much for promises, they end up just empty words. They leave you with wounds, scars that never fade. I remember feeling such a void, gross darkness, ugly brokenness.

• It took me years to forgive my dad. Even though I knew that both my parents were to blame, he was the one who left. He was the one who replaced us with another family. My sister and I suffer much loss through our parents divorce. We faced hunger, experienced having no heat in our home, we were forced to grow up. Mom did the best she could but we always struggled.

• I told myself then that I will never live like this! I have spent my entire life striving to never do to my own children what was done to me. I feel I have failed my sons in many ways but by the grace of God they have never had to face the hardships I faced.

• Life goes on….. people change…..I have changed.

A Timeline

Old Photographs

Acrostic PoemSisters

Found Poem

Home no longer broken….