Sorry. Not the damn board game, either.

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I was only 10 years old when the song Hard to Say I’m Sorry by the band Chicago became a huge hit. Every time I heard the song, which was often in the Summer of 1982, I would cry. Oftentimes, I would cry myself to sleep.

 

Hold me now.

It’s hard for me to say I’m sorry.

I just want you to stay.

After all that we’ve been through,

I will make it up to you. I promise to.

 

Mama and Papa were going through a war of roses.

 

And after all that’s been said and done,

You’re just the part of me I can’t let go.

 

The Fall prior I came home one evening to a kitchen counter full of brown paper grocery store bags full of clothes and toiletries for us three kids and Mama. I was told to go say goodbye to Papa who sat in the living room in front of the glowing TV. The four of us and our brown paper bags piled into the Ford Granada and off Mama drove to our grandparents’ house in the city while Papa stayed tucked inside the only house I knew.

 

Couldn’t stand to be kept away...just for the day...from your body.

Wouldn’t wanna be swept away, far away, from the one that I love.

 

I remember the day we packed our belongings and piled back into the Granada and headed home. I was happy and excited. We were going to be a family again.

 

Hold me now.

It’s hard for me to say I’m sorry.

I just want you to know.

 

But then we ended up camping upstairs in my sister’s attic bedroom when Papa was home so that we weren’t ever all together with him.

 

Hold me now.

I really want to tell you I’m sorry.

I could never let you go.

 

Every night when it was my bedtime, I would climb the dark brown carpeted stairs to the attic and get into bed while my sister’s radio played. And every night I waited to hear Hard to Say I’m Sorry.

 

After all that we’ve been through,

I will make it up to you. I promise to.

 

And every night I cried myself to sleep.

 

And after all that’s been said and done,

You’re just the part of me I can’t let go.

 

Then one day Mama changed the locks on the doors to the house when Papa was at work. She packed a couple of his suitcases and set them on the blue-gray front porch. She sent me to a family down the street to play.

 

After all that we’ve been through,

I will make it up to you. I promise to.

 

Papa went home to being locked out of his house.  

 

You’re gonna be the lucky one.

 

Five years later, their divorce was finalized. 30 years later and any time I hear even a snippet of this song, it’s like I’m 10 years old again.

 

They never did say they were sorry, either—not to each other and not to us.

 

 

 

 

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