7 Years Old

My last memory of my parents being together was my 7th birthday, and I would always cherish it. We didn’t have a party for my seventh birthday, but more of a small get-together for lunch. Maddy and the Humpreys were our only guests. We celebrated it at Gladstones, my favorite restaurant at the time. It was in the Pacific Palisades, right on the beach. I had my favorite meal, lobster.

It was a very happy day for all of us. I was turning seven. That was a big number for my little mind. I had spent seven years on this fascinating world, and my life was at a good start. I had loving parents, I had friends to play with, I was having fun at school, and I had all the toys a little boy could want. A stranger would look at this seven year old boy and think that he has a great life in front of him, that there is nothing to worry about. Indeed, there shouldn’t be anything to worry about... But I was just a child. I still had a few more years to enjoy life in carefree bliss before I would eventually discover how twisted and cruel this “fascinating world” really is.

My parents seemed happy that day. I remember them laughing and having a good time. It would be the last time I remember them being happy together. Perhaps they really weren’t, perhaps they were just putting up a front so that I could enjoy my birthday. I couldn’t even fathom the possibility of my parents separating.

Very shortly after my seventh birthday, the news came. I believe it was my mother who told me that she and my father were getting a divorce; my mother, who only a few months before told me that such a thing will never happen. I was absolutely shocked, outraged, and above all, overwhelmed. This was a huge life-changing event.

My father was to stay at the round house, and my mother would move to another smaller house in Topanga. It was arranged that me and my sister will mostly be living with our mother, and we would go to father’s house on the weekends. My father was required to pay child support to my mother so that she can look after us.

My life would change forever after this. The family I grew up with has split in half, and from then on I would grow up in two different households. I remember crying. All the happy times I spent with my mother and father as a family were gone, only to remain in memory. It was a very sad day. Just like the move to the U.S., it would be like starting a whole new life with a new routine.

Despite the initial sadness I felt from my family splitting in half, my new life situation wasn’t all that bad. It was still practically the same life, though I lived with my mother in one house and my father in another.

My mother’s new house was small and red in color, located up a steep driveway from Topanga Canyon Boulevard. I would call it the “Red House”. It was the smallest house I’ve lived in at that point. It only had two bedrooms, and I had to share a room with my sister Georgia. We had a bunk-bed, and I slept on the top. I was quite uncomfortable with this change at first, being used to having my own room and living in bigger houses. My mother’s kind and loving nature, however, made up for this, and she turned the household into a fun environment which I enjoyed living in.

After spending the first week at mother’s house, father came to pick me and my sister up for the weekend. Georgia had become very attached to mother after this week, and she burst into tears when we drove off. I too, was a bit distressed at having to go from one house to the other every week, but I would soon get used to it.

The Round House was very different without mother being there. When we entered, I felt a wave of sadness creep over me as I was reminded of my life when mother and father were together. The house was full of memories; happy, cheerful memories that were lost in the past. With my mother missing from it, there was a sense of bleakness and loss to the place. Father did his best to cheer us up. I could tell that he, too, was very saddened by the recent events.

My father soon rented one of the rooms of the round house to his good friend Dan Perelli, one of his first friends in America. Dan used to live close to our house in Woodland Hills until he was struck with financial troubles, which I’m assuming is why he started renting a room from my father. I would always call him “Uncle Dan”. From this point on, Uncle Dan would stay with us as a lodger for a few years.

The time to start Second Grade arrived. My new teacher was named Mrs. Weisberg, and she was very kind. The students in my class were mostly the same as my First Grade class, with only one or two new students who transferred from other schools. I made a few new friends, such as Shane and Tommy.