When a marriage ends in divorce, it doesn’t mean that all is lost.
This is something that was shared by Codie LaChelle McPhate of Waller, Texas. She talks about how adults can remain committed to being there for the children’s sake, even when a marriage ends prematurely. She took to social media to write this post and now thousands of people have viewed it from around the world. She stopped by her mother’s house that day and saw something that took her by surprise.
“This is my dad, mowing my mom’s lawn. They’ve been divorced 28 years,” Codie wrote.
“My mom has bad knees, and my stepdad works out of town. When my younger siblings questioned, ‘Why is your dad mowing mom’s lawn?’ I told them, ‘Because, she needed help, and he knew she couldn’t get out here to do it, so he did.’”
Codie said that her parents were divorced for almost 3 decades. Even though that was the case, they never stopped caring for each other. They have children together so they will always respect the person who brought those precious lives into the world with them. They may have different circumstances at this point, but they still have a bond.
“This is co-parenting. This is how lucky I am to have 4 parents who respect each other, and know that at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is showing your children (Even ones that are 32 years old) how to treat people, and how to love your family, no matter how it came together.”
“My dad is with me in Texas on vacation. He doesn’t even live here where my mom lives. So not only did he do something selflessly for her, he did it for her while he was on his VACATION. He wants everyone to know, ‘I’m no saint.’ He just wants to show others that you don’t need to act like an angelic pastor on lent, but that we should all choose kindness whenever we can.”
It is the reason behind what he did that day that really makes people love this post. He didn’t do it because he wanted recognition, he did it because he could and he knew it would help her out.
“My dad said he didn’t do this for the recognition. He said my mom and he decided when they were going through their divorce they would both choose to be adults and treat each other with respect and compassion, because no matter how their marriage ended, they both loved each other very much at one point, and that, that love – counts for something. That if they were going to raise their children to be good, kind people, they needed to be good kind people.”
I would say that the world needs a lot more people like this. This man is setting the bar for all of us.