ABSTRACT
Whether or not one chooses to end a marriage with a formal divorce rite, ritualization during divorce is all but inevitable. Mary Jane and I were almost as long in ending as we had been in the great, swollen middle of our marriage. With much of the grief work done, the final expulsion from the marital home was nevertheless a surprising jolt even though we had taken years, full of circles and cycles, getting there. Finally, I popped out like a Ping-Pong ball blown from the barrel of one of the Burp guns that Darrell and I used to shoot at each other when we were kids.
