My children struggled terribly after my divorce  — and my oldest daughter struggled the most

As told to Shoshana Gross

F

illing up a car with diesel is never a good move… especially when your car runs on regular gas. But there I was, standing at the pump somewhere between the Midwest and New York, my hand shaking as I squeezed the handle of the nozzle.

All I could think about were the jeans. My daughter. In the passenger seat. Wearing jeans.

It wasn’t the first time, but those stiff, ripped blue pants still felt like a heart attack waiting to happen. I was driving her to a special school in New York, a school for girls who had gone off the derech, girls who needed “a different kind of environment” (I knew all the euphemisms). Girls like my daughter.

I glanced stealthily to my left, and my stomach dropped. A chassidish family was filling up their van at the next pump. The mother in her tichel, the father with his long peyos flapping in the wind, a gaggle of children streaming out in their pressed, proper, tzniyus clothing. That was what a frum family should be. What I used to believe my family would be.

And there I was: a divorced mother of four, with my troubled, jean-clad daughter, driving to a school for kids who didn’t fit the mold I wished she would.

I could feel eyes boring into my back, and the flood of crimson crawling up my neck. I wanted to disappear. Or shout across the pump, “She’s a good girl, really!”

Instead, I just stood there, fumbling with the diesel nozzle, until an attendant bellowed, “Lady! Whaddaya doin’? Why’ya puttin’ diesel inna your car?”

My new car. Diesel.

I definitely had everyone’s attention now.

What am I doing wrong? Hashem, why are You punishing me? Why can’t I fix her?