My own parents divorced late in life, when I was 30. I recall being shocked at all the child-like emotions that welled up even though I was married with a toddler of my own. Among the emotions that surfaced was a desire to be fair to them both in terms of time spent visiting them with my young daughter. I found myself tracking not just the number of visits, but also the hours and days spent with one versus the other. Knowing this was unnecessary and a bit irrational did not immediately quell my desire to keep things fair.

Cycle forward half a decade and I found myself divorced with another daughter having arrived just before their mother and I split. I vowed not to make the girls feel the weird stuff I had felt. Over the first several years, I began to develop the pies metaphor, and I taught it to my daughters—probably ad nauseam.

The metaphor stuck with me well beyond their tender years. It spread to their friends and I shared it with other divorcing parents as well. The girls are grown now, I'm remarried, and I inherited two stepsons along the way. That's a lot of pies to juggle, but I've always said children are sent to raise their parents, not the other way around. True to form, all my children taught me how to love with a whole pie.

Olive and the Secret of the Pies is a gift back to my daughters and perhaps the little boy within me. Olive and her story is simply the embodiment of my journey and the time I spent holding tiny hands during tumultuous times. All the while thinking I was raising them, when they were raising me. And, since we are all grown now, I simply hope that all the other children out there doing their best to raise their divorcing parents can rest a bit easier and just love with a whole pie.

~ Rob Arnold ~