No Gift to Be Owed

In no other life - no other life! - would it be normal to move into a new house, unpack, settle in, start over without your partner. In no other life would it be normal to do all of that - the packing, the moving, the settling-in without your spouse - twice in less than three years. 

In no other life would it be normal to do that without harboring resentment towards that very partner who boarded a plane and flew to the other side of the country - or the world - and left knowing what you would undertake. 

Or maybe to me it's normal. So many times people ask me what C "owes me". What I am demanding in return. If he knows how hard this PCS and time-apart has been.

I understand the reason for the questions. I do. And I have told C that when he gets here I need a day - just a day - where I can go off and breathe. I have never even asked before but this time, this time, I need a day to sit alone and do nothing, or to shop with a friend, or to get a pedicure, or to take a shower for longer than four minutes. 

Really, I would just take the shower. 

This move has been the most difficult we have ever had. This last quarter has been the most emotional that I can remember. But never, not once, have I harbored any anger or resentment at C for it. I don't think I have that right. I knew in this - and, no, not when I "signed up for it" but some time into it - I knew there would be a defining point where you had to choose how you would view this walk - how you viewed the "me," and the "you," and the "we".

I know how helpless C has felt knowing every single thing that has gone wrong. I know how much it hurt him to get that phone call telling him of Eli's diagnosis. I know how much he wants nothing more than to comfort and fix and make right. I know, I know, that it hurt every part of him that is a father and a husband and a protector and a man when I couldn't hold back my tears on that phone and he couldn't do anything but listen. 

I know that this is hard on him. I know he wants to be going through it with me - if we have to go through it at all.

 We are never living this life, living a marriage, alone. We are building and pushing through together - whether in different parts of the country or different parts of the world. We hurt when the other hurts. We struggle to balance those emotions, to place them, accept them when we cannot physically be together. 

In all of this, there have been a handful of times when all I wanted - all I wanted was for C to hold me. Just to hug me. I just wanted to be held by my husband. You have no idea how much you can miss physical touch until it is gone. It's why we cling onto them when they come home. Why they cling to us. 

The fact that he can't isn't his fault. The fact that he can't isn't even the Army's fault. It is simply what this life is. Simply the hand we are dealt at times. 

Sometimes they will be here. Most often times they won't. 

We have to honor the marriage that we work for. We have to honor the vows we speak. There is no room to resent - no healthy way to harbor it. 

That is what Promises was all about. Understanding what the other feels. Understanding that every part of this life is hard, every challenge becomes a hundred times greater when we go through it without the other physically with us - without having the ability to hold onto one another. 

You have to learn to love so wholly that you can feel each other's pain. You have to learn to know that the very knowledge of your hurt becomes their hurt. The very thought of their separation putting a greater burden on you - on us - binds their hurt to their guilt. 

There is no debt to be paid. No gift to be owed.

We do not hurt alone.

To Do Unto Others

There are certain parts of who I am that I know are weaknesses and strengths at the very same time. I know that my love for people – for getting to really know people – is something I get from my mother. I know it is a strength. I know learning from people and learning about people and seeing how different personalities work together brings me joy and fulfillment and hope. I also know that this very love for people leads me to always believe the best in another, to always try to do right by those around me, to always assume that each person is fundamentally good. 

That opens me up for a world of hurt.

Not everyone has good intentions. Not everyone thinks for themselves. Not everyone understands or cares to find out the truth before they speak. Not everyone will see the world – or the situations in the day to day of it – the way that each of us does.

There is a very fine line between keeping grace and defending everything you are – everything you believe. A line so thin that it physically hurts to hang onto it – to not cross it. It makes me ill to see and hear ignorance and hatred and unjustified disdain.

Every part of me wants to call out every untruth that has been said, wants to offer fact to cancel out fiction, wants to explain that their source of information is so wrong that they need to see things with their own eyes, and to remember the kindness done to them.

I don’t believe a person should call out the acts they do for others. I don’t believe goodness shared is something to be boasted of or told about. I believe people should do good because we as children of God are made to do good. That when a friend or a neighbor or an acquaintance or a stranger is in need you give what you can, you do what you can, you offer what you can.

When a fellow army wife is sick while her spouse is away, you bring a bag of groceries, then you make another trip and bring pedialite for the kiddos who have caught the bug too. When a friend is in labor while her husband is deployed and she asks you to stay, you stay. When someone’s washer and dryer is out-of-commission, you open your home and wash their clothes. When a friend has surgery and is stuck in bed (and shares the same "addiction"), you deliver Starbucks. When a fellow spouse has a new baby, you make a muffin basket and cook up a meal. When someone is having a hard time, you tell them they can do this, that they are made for this, that there is no room for doubt. That they are strong enough to make it through, that they have to believe in grace. We give what we are able simply because we are called to give.

I believe that when it is needed, you go the extra mile. When someone is hurting, you offer comfort. When people work hard and give much that you thank them and acknowledge them and recognize that their choice to do good positively affects the whole.

I believe that the choices you make – that when you choose to look at the whole picture, at the entire person, at the entire family – when you choose to do good by them, to do better by them – that the correct choice to keep that quiet can be hard when it is something they will never know. When it is something that they can never understand. When it is something that when they speak ill out of ignorance you want to shake them and tell them. When the choice to do good by a family, who does not understand, will remain something between you and your Maker … that is a time for grace.

The logical part of me knows that people do hateful things for little reason. That one person whispering in the ear of another can distort what they have known for themselves. That people will twist and misconstrue and make the truth whatever works for them. They will make reality what they need it to be.

Our human inclination is to defend our own – to defend ourselves. To defend our friends who are hurt. To lash out. To prove wrong. To correct error. To pick apart an argument and show just how embarrassingly false it is. 

For as good as the people in this life are, there will always be those who speak louder, who lie to lie, who need to have their side told – no matter how false it is. They will do everything they can to destroy the good around them. To spread their anger. To harm those who need guidance. They take advantage. They remember things as they weren’t.  

Days like today may be meant to challenge my resolve. To challenge me to love in spite of. To give in spite of. To do good in spite of. 

Because there is no tally between you and those you do good by. There is no keeping score or boasting of or checking off. You do good because you are called to be kind, to give what you are able, to do unto others as you would want done unto you.  

Ignorance hurts. Lies cut deep. But to give up who I am, to give up how I to my core believe I am called to live, due to ignorance! What a tragedy that would be. 

Acceptance

I sat down to write about the hellish move C and I have not completed yet. I sat down to talk about how the movers didn't show up to pack the first time, about how they packed on Christmas Eve instead, about how the day they were supposed to start we were notified by our next duty station that we would not be moving directly into our new house and that our items would have to be placed in storage. I was going to talk about how that meant I would be moving into a house, again, alone.

I sat down to write about how everything went wrong the day we finally left Fort Carson, how long it took us to get to the bajillion different places we needed to get to. How we had to pull over on the side of the interstate at night because the trailer carrying the jeep started to disconnect, or how we ended up dropping the trailer off half way to our destination because it was more of a hell than a help. 

I sat down to write about getting sick in a way that I can't remember getting sick before just two days before C had to leave for DC. I was going to write about how I couldn't get out of bed and I had two kiddos in a not-so-awesome Army hotel with a husband who left on a plane for two months away. I was going to write about having to take Eli to the ER because he too got the flu and how hard it was to drive there and how it took nearly 5 hours when it was all said and done.

I was going to write about all of it. In detail. And I didn't even include it all up there.

We still don't have a house.

When I sat down to write one word kept going again and again through my head and it just won't go away.

Acceptance.

There were a few days that I was at my lowest - that were really, really hard. I was alone in a place with no support system, no ability to go anywhere, sick beyond sick, unable to move, with two kiddos.  And it was hard. 

When C left for the airport, there wasn't anger or frustration that he had to go. I didn't ask him to find a way to stay back because this is just the way it goes sometimes. This is just the way it is. There will always be times - and sometimes the worst times - that they must go when we really need them to stay. 

C went to work hours after Logan was born. He was at work for much of the time that I was in labor. He had to leave while Eli was in the NICU to head back to Fort Benning. He has left me with Logan in Children's Hospital because the Army doesn't wait. I am so very grateful for the ability to accept that it isn't up to me. I am so very grateful that I know that him leaving in no way - in no way - means that he loves me any less, that he loves these kiddos any less. I am thankful that we have a partnership and understanding of what this life takes, of what it demands, and that we know what that means to our marriage.

I am grateful that him leaving doesn't make me question what his intentions are. I am thankful that I learned early on that acceptance doesn't make you weak. That not fighting that which you cannot change saves strength. 

I am grateful that sharing this journey has provided better understanding. I am grateful that for the dozens of civilian friends and acquaintances who have talked to me in the last week, not-a-one has raised a question about C still needing to leave. Not-a-one has questioned his dedication this family. Not one has asked, "Are you okay with that?" or "He couldn't stay?!" Each one has been understanding and empathetic and careful in their wording. I noticed the change.

I am grateful that so many have taken the time to listen and learn and understand. 

The hardest times show us our strength. They teach us how much we can do with faith and grace. The ability to not be angry, to not be resentful, to accept what we cannot change, is to be sought after and worked towards and held dear. 

I know my C loves me. I know he loves his children. I know that this job will take him when it is the least convenient for him go. I can't change it. I won't fight it. There is so much more worth fighting for.

Whatever the battle, whatever the struggle, you can make it through. You can survive this. You can thrive. 

Humbled

I hate taking out the trash. 

I really, really hate emptying the trash can. I will shove trash down until the bag is about to burst. I just hate it and I really hate that I have to do it when C is gone. 

Really.

I really hate that there have been break-ins on this post this past week. 

I hate that right when I got the boys back on a night-time routine I find myself picking them up and moving them to my bed so that I can lock them in my room with me at night just in case someone tries to break in. I hate lying awake thinking every noise is something to fear. 

I hate that he can't be here to check it out.

I hate that Eli started head-banging in anger again. I hate that C can't be here to balance out the lack of sleep with me. I hate that Logan and Eli got into their first real fight last night when I was already late for an event. I hate that Logan for the first time hurt his little brother out of frustration. I hate that C wasn't here to help me through it. I hate that I had to make it through that myself.

I hate that I haven't learned how to drive C's jeep like I planned to while he was away. I hate that I know that will continue to be put on the back burner when I really need to learn. I hate that I don't have enough time.

I hate that there aren't enough hours in the day. I hate that I am so tired.

I hate that I have to do it all.

I hate that I can't. 

I don't do well with failure. I don't think many people do but I fear it. Very often for me it just isn't an option. 

This life is humbling - not just because to serve is to be humbled before others, before God - but because there will be days where we feel that we have failed, that we couldn't do it, that we weren't good enough. We have to learn - sometimes repeatedly - that we cannot do it all. That the strongest among us will be weak.

Logan climbed into my lap today, kissed me, and told me I was a good mommy. In the last 24 hours, since Eli and Logan fought last night, I have not felt like a "good mommy."

I am grateful for this precious child. I am grateful for the littlest child clinging to my arm while he sleeps beside me, who still calls every soldier "daddy," who has been searching their faces for the one that belongs to him.

I am grateful for the friend and neighbor who took C's jeep around the neighborhood because it has been sitting too long. I am still thankful that she is the very first person that welcomed me to this village. She has been a blessing.

I am thankful that I have grown so close to people here that a handful know when my face is hiding sadness or defeat and they know to just give a hug because tomorrow will be better, tomorrow I will do better. I am grateful that they don't think less of me when I am weak.

I am grateful for this community - this intimately-knit community - filled with women willing to bend over backwards for one another. I am grateful for those who have been there, done that, get it. I am thankful that people are placed beside us for a purpose, that goodness and kindness always come at the most needed time (Thanks, D), that harder days provide for greater blessings.

I am thankful that I have been given a love worthy of such intense longing. I am thankful that I have been given a partner that I will fight for and thrive for and survive through this for. I am thankful that we are made worthy for the life we are given - that we are made strong for the journey we face. How incredible to be able to be given a love, to fight for a love, that makes the difficulties and the struggles worthy of the battle, worthy of the victory.

How humbling the Grace we are given. How worthy the victory won.

Bad Dreams

A couple weeks ago, C and I were watching a movie together one of the nights that he was home. For once, his phone didn't ring. For once, he wasn't running in to his office for a "few minutes" that always turns into a few hours. He was home. The boys were asleep and we were able to just be.

Logan woke up screaming. A scary, heartbroken scream. Right when I made it up the stairs to hold him the screaming changed to words between gasping breaths, "Daddy's gone!" "Daddy left again!" "Daddy's gone!" I tried to close the door to quiet the words but it was too late. 

C was standing behind me.

He heard it. He heard every agonizing word.

Not once in all the time that C has been gone this year had Logan ever woken up like that. Not once had I ever heard him scream like that. Not once had he struggled through those words in the middle of the night with complete and absolute despair. 

Not one time.

It happened for the first time when C was there to see it. He held him the rest of the night. 

I hadn't felt that broken since the moment during the last deployment when it clicked to Logan that his Daddy wasn't coming home for a very long time. I hadn't felt that helpless and shattered since I held him while he cried himself to sleep that first time.

I watched C wrap his arms around him and cradle him and say, "I'm right here, buddy. I am right here." C kissed the top of his head and tightened his arms around him while Logan slowly stopped gasping for air, stopped sobbing between breaths. He held him and rocked him until he drifted back to his dreams that again woke him with the same terror. And he tightened his arms again and kissed his forehead and said again, "I'm right here, Buddy. I am right here." 

I laid in our bed struggling to sleep, wanting so badly to understand why! Of all the nights he hadn't been there, of all the times that C wouldn't have felt that pain. With all the nights that he had not been here, WHY did it have to happen when he was?

Why when he would see it? Why when he would see his child broken? WHY? Doesn't he carry enough? Doesn't his heart hurt enough?  Doesn't he give and give-up enough?

I know how to want to take pain from a child. I know how to hold my little ones and rock them back to sleep. I know how to remind them how much their daddy loves them, and misses them, and wants to be there. I know how to talk to them about how important the mission is, how vital daddy's job is to every part of our life. I know how to dry their tears and kiss their hurts and just hold them. 

But to see two hearts breaking. To have no words that can heal or comfort or fix.

To see your children miss their daddy is a far different thing than for their daddy to see how much they hurt when he isn't there. 

It hurts to know how much they miss him. It hurts to know how much they want him here. It breaks me to know that he has seen it now. It threatens my strength to know that now that he is gone again, now that his nights are spent away from here again ... I know my C. I know that image, that scream, will stay somewhere in his heart. 

He carries so, so much. This was one thing I wanted to always carry for him. 

Head Above Water

Parenting is hard.

Parenting alone is harder.

Parenting when your partner is in the home one day and out for weeks or months the next is hardest.

I'm tired.

Emotionally. Physically. Mentally. 

I'm tired.

I have said before that C is training far more than we have ever experienced. The ratio between when he is "home" and when he is not is beyond skewed. The chaos of emotions that accompany his training rotations exhaust every part of me. He is here for a flash and then he is gone. Logan asks when he will come back. When he comes back, Logan asks him not to go back to work. When he leaves again too soon Logan can't understand why. 

When C headed out this morning, he told me how sorry he was. In the complete disorientation of early, early morning sleep, I heard it: 

I'm so sorry I am leaving you again.

All that I could manage in response, half-asleep, barely-awake, was:

No sorries. Never sorries.

Parenting without them, keeping a family moving without them, handling the temper-tantrums, and the refusals to go to sleep, and the fights over toys, and the stubborn eating, and each tiny everyday thing without them, while still trying to keep them present, is hard.

But at no point is something taking me from being here. At no point will I receive a call, or a schedule, or a calendar update that tells me I not only will be gone for three weeks this time around but add another two. At no point will something else I chose take me from Eli saying his brother's name for the first time like he did today. At no point will a higher obligation take from me the frustration of Eli figuring out how to open doors like he did while he should have been in bed. At no point is anything taking me from this moment, right now, when I realize that my little man - who is still labeled "failure to thrive", still being monitored and checked on regularly by his wonderful doctor - that he can reach the door knob. That he has grown. Because I think that C's mind and heart would have gone to that fact when it happened rather than how my brain nearly exploded with the annoyance that he had made that discovery. 

And C would have loved to be here. He would probably have cheered and offered high-fives and just loved on him because he would have seen the good right then and not two hours later.

I know how much he wants to be here. I know how much it means to him to serve. I cannot know what it is to have your heart torn. To whisper an "I'm sorry," while turning and walking away. To want to hold onto both. To think that one has to be let down for the other. 

I will never know what it is to be a man torn into two.

I don't know how he does it. I don't know how he can love so fiercely, so wholly. I cannot know how much he carries, how much his heart must hold, to love and serve both a nation and his family. His love for the other has never let me down, never made me feel less loved, less needed, less valued.

Never once has he left me with less of himself. 

Never.

No sorries. Never sorries.

Tonight is about keeping my head above water. Tomorrow may be very much the same. 

This. Life. Is. Hard.

But even on the hardest days, while he never fails to give me and his nation all of him, I, at the very least, owe him the best of me.

To keep loving. To keep moving forward. To keep swimming. Even when the best I can do on that day, on this day, is to just keep my head above water.

Precious Children

C has (and will continue to have) a fairly rigorous training schedule. So far this year he has been home for less than five weeks total. And the weeks that he is "home" he is at the office on average fifteen hours a day, his phone rings when he is tucking the boys in bed, or finally going to see a movie with me, or taking a moment to breathe, or sleep. 

I can count on one hand how many times we have been able to all sit down and eat a meal together in 2012. 

One hand.

The year is a quarter over. 

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

Sleeping is hard when they aren't here. I have never spoken to a military wife who says she sleeps better when her soldier is away. Every little noise, every gust of wind, every thought, every unknown, every question, every scenario creeps in through the darkness. And even when all those things don't, you still have a side of the bed that is cold and vacant and untouched. 

Nights are hard.

And somehow, on the hardest nights, Logan just knows. That little boy, who will be four in just a few days, knows when his purest heart is needed. On nights when I can't sleep for the longest, when I toss and turn, and think, he almost always walks in quietly, climbs up onto the high bed, and says, "Can I sleep on Daddy's side?" 

And I always say yes.

He doesn't do it every night. He doesn't do it every time C isn't here. But the nights he does, those are always the nights that I need that tiny voice asking if he can be there.  

Children are a blessing. The strength my little ones give me when I am tired and worn ... I thank God for them. 

Children are incredible. Military children have a gift to heal our hurts, to strengthen our aching hearts. We hold them tighter, they hold us tighter because sometimes mommy needs that precious, precious touch. Sometimes, Daddy needs that squeeze around the neck to remind him that they are who he fights for. 

 The nights can be lonely, the days can be long, the clock ticks and ticks and ticks, never stopping, never pause. Military children are precious, and loving, and resilient. I am reminded every day of the gifts that they are.

Gifts men and women lay down their lives to protect. 

Precious, precious children of God.

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April is the Month of the Military Child. Pray for our military children - from the unborn who will wait to meet their daddies, to the grown men and women who, very often, becomes soldiers and/or the men and women who love them. 

God Bless our troops and those they fight for. 

Didn't you Hear?

They are coming home, didn't you hear?

No more war.

Didn't you know?

No more deployments.

They are coming home. The war is over.

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God, give me grace.

Part of me wants to think that hearing this hurts a little less after hearing it for so long. Part of me wants to think that I "know" how to not let this get to me - when strangers ask how I didn't know! When strangers tell me that my husband isn't deploying. Part of me wants to believe that I can just shut this out. 

That it doesn't affect me. That it doesn't make me angry. That it doesn't make me want to show whoever is saying it how wrong they are to speak such words.

I so want to be at that point that just has to happen somewhere down the road where such words don't make me cringe. Where such completely ignorant statements won't hit me like pings to my ears. 

Didn't you hear? No more War.

No, no I didn't. 

During the day-and-a-half that I saw C between his month-long-"adventure" to the desert of California and his three-day-joy-ride in the field he must have neglected to tell me. 

I'm sure he meant to.

It somehow must have slipped his mind while scheduling training-after-training, and field-exercise-after-field-exercise, sitting in meeting-after-meeting talking about a deployment that some stranger says isn't happening. Because if a stranger knows surely C has been informed.

No more deployments! Didn't you hear?

No, I hadn't heard.

Somehow someone must have forgotten to tell the instructors that teach us how to care for the families of the fallen, how to support them, how to speak to them, how to honor them. How to hide our tears, how to stay strong while their world crumbles before them. Someone must have forgotten to tell them to cancel those. Someone must have forgotten to tell them we no longer have soldiers fighting. That we no longer have soldiers dying. That there is no reason to fear the doorbell. That the loves of our lives are safe. 

Someone should tell them. They must have not heard.

Somehow someone still feels a need to train these men and women. Someone still finds it necessary to take them from their families, to have them miss lives while they are still at "home", to take them for months and weeks at a time to prepare for something that apparently isn't happening anymore. Someone should tell them because I miss my husband. If there is no more war, surely there is no more training. Surely he can be home every night. Surely he will not miss anymore of his children's lives. Surely there is no longer a reason. 

Someone must have forgotten to tell my friends whose husbands are in a war zone ... oh wait, what is it called then? Someone should tell our friend who just watched his girlfriend leave to go to ... um ... the desert for a nine-month-vacation. I'm sure she is just there for those awesome tan lines the helmet and chin strap give. Someone should tell those soldiers. Maybe I should knock on my five neighbors' doors whose husbands just left on twelve-month orders. Surely they haven't heard yet. Surely not. Someone should let them know.

Didn't you hear? No more war.

No, no I didn't.

Someone should tell them.

They must not have heard.

Healing Waters

In my last post I spoke about the importance of understanding and recognizing the last image you give to your soldier. Of understanding what your reaction, what your actions, can mean to him. How important it is to provide a strong front, a calm sadness, a reassuring smile. If you haven't read it yet, I would encourage you to. 

(Farewells and Fairy Dust)

There is a part to this that may have been misunderstood or missed in total. If you have read through all of my posts (which, of course, I encourage you to do!), you know that I cry - a lot. In the days and weeks before C left this last time, I wore waterproof mascara every. single. day. It was the little things that got me - dressing Eli in the morning, wondering what size he would be wearing when C came home, wondering how different he would look. Watching Logan play on the playground, wondering how much more he would learn to do while C wasn't there. Seeing him updating and adding ribbons to his Blues ... 

I cried when I was in the shower. I cried when Logan put on his PC as C was packing up. I cried when we watched certain shows, when I tripped over his boots, at the grocery store buying orange juice because I don't drink orange juice, C does, and would I remember to stop buying it? What if I bought it on accident? What if I never had to buy it again ...  

The day I said "goodbye" I hugged him and stood on my toes to whisper, "I love you. I'll miss you. Come back to me."

And in the army way with the softest but deepest breathe I whispered one more, "See you soon."

And on the day C left, I stepped up into my car, and cried harder than I thought possible - the hot water pouring down my face, soaking my clothes, the snot mixing in, gasping for air between heaving sobs. Because no matter what had just happened in that assembly center, no matter what image I just gave him, I needed to feel it. My husband was leaving to go to war. My husband was leaving to live with Afghans - not Americans. My husband was going to be vastly outnumbered. My husband was entering into that situation barely a month after several Afghans (in the area he was going to) went rogue and turned on their trainers and advisers. In my mind, there was a very real possibility that he wouldn't come home to me, to our boys. That that was the last time I might see him. 

There is no healthy way to hold that in. None. 

I cried it out. And I didn't care who could see or what people thought. I needed to feel it, to let the sadness and fear and dread wash over me so that I could - at least for a time - let them go. It was healing for me. To cry until there was nothing left. To physically feel the sadness leaving my body. 

I cannot say how important I think it is to acknowledge the difficulty and sadness and pain that exists in this life. I do not think that ignoring that is in any way healthy or strengthening or smart. While in my heart I had to believe that he was coming home, I had to believe that God would watch over him and his men, you cannot know. You just do not know.

I do not think we should wallow in that. I do not think we should think every day, "What if he is gone today." No, no, no, no, I do not think we should ask that! But I think there needs to be a time - or times - when the what-ifs become too hard to bear, when the sadness begins to eat at our strength,  that we need to let it go. To sit down and let the pain leave our hearts.

It is in these moments, when I can barely breathe, when the sobs are so heavy, that I find myself in the truest, rawest pray. When in my core, in the deepest part of my gut, I am begging God to "Keep him safe." "Dearest, Dearest, God, bring him back to me. Let his children KNOW him."

Let him hold them. Let him watch them grow. Do not take him from them. 

Those are the vulnerable moments. When at the time we are at our weakest. The moments we don't talk about or don't share. The moments that are just "ours". Intimate moments between a loving God and a humbled human.

These are healing moments. Strengthening moments when we acknowledge that we feel broken. That our hearts are too heavy. That our road seems too dark.

Allow yourself to feel this life. Allow yourself to let it go. 

Tears are healing waters; prayer in agony is a powerful thing. He will strengthen you for the journey. He will wipe the sadness from your heart. 

You only need to ask.

Farewells and Fairy Dust

Within the last two days two different people have brought up how they handle farewells. What it is to show and hide emotion. What is "normal". What the movies make it seem like, like the fairytale side of us wants to believe things to be. 

We all say goodbye in different ways. We all have a different way of handling those last moments. That last hour, the last minutes, last seconds - they twist your heart. We all react differently to how it feels.

K (a reader) emailed me wanting to know if she did something wrong - because she had just said goodbye to her fiance and she didn't cling to him for dear life, or cry her eyes out holding him, or run back to him, or beg him over and over again not to go. She held him, she quietly told him she loved him, that she'd miss him, for him to be safe, and she walked away. 

There is a picture - and I have mentioned it before - of C kissing my forehead for the last time before he deployed to Afghanistan. One of my closest friends took it with a very simple camera in an assembly center filled with hundreds of people sharing the exact same moment. In this picture, there is a look on each of our faces that words do not exist for. There is so much sadness and pain and strength and beauty - all of it, on C's face and mine, at the exact same time. I cannot tell you what that picture means to me - to see exactly what that very last moment looked like. I feel so incredibly blessed to have it.

The last hour before C left we didn't say much. We sat beside eachother. We held hands. We just felt each other's presence. We barely spoke. 

It isn't that I didn't have anything to say. It isn't that C didn't have anything to say. It's that the things that come into your mind, that take over your thoughts, in the moments before your soldier leaves to go to war, are not the things that need to be spoken of in those moments. It's the what-ifs and the just-in-cases and the this-may-be-the-last-times that are the words that sit on your lips, that you fight to say or not to say. C and I choose not to say them. 

Because we can't live for the what-ifs and the just-in-cases. He can't enter into battle with my if-this-is-the-last-times on his heart. There is no room for that fear - not from both of us.

I want him to enter into battle with confidence in love, blanketed in prayer, covered in encouragement. I want him to enter into battle knowing that I can do this. That I will continue our life, that when he returns home, I will hold him with all of my might and praise God for bringing him back to me.

I told K that she went through her goodbye with more grace than I could believe - that everyone handles this differently and that I thought she did well.

I know some families who do not go to the "drop-off" at all. Who say their goodbyes in the privacy of their home. I can understand that. 

To watch the love of your life, the father of your children, walk away ... to know that this might be the last time ... to fight through those incredibly intimate moments surrounded by hundreds of others. I can see why some people choose to go through that in private.

The goodbyes are rarely what you see in the movies, what we imagine in fairy tales. You do not get to run back and pull him from formation. There is no "last call" for your soldier coming over the speaker as he kisses you once more. The reality is far different.

We all handle the goodbye in different ways. But I would ask that you remember that while this is your last time with your soldier, it is your soldier's last time with you. What image you leave them with is what they will carry with them - whatever you choose it to be. You can crumble at their feet, fight to keep them in your arms, and they will carry that. They will worry over it. They will wonder if you can make it through this. You can kiss them with all of your heart, simply, lovingly, completely. You can let them know you are going to be okay. That you will miss them. That you will be waiting here with open arms. You can stand tall, and give the slightest nod and tiniest smile to leave them with. 

It may be the hardest thing you do. 

It also may be the greatest gift - letting them know you are here for the long haul, that you are strong enough, that you love them to Afghanistan and back - to do so with the tiniest, most calming smile. To give them the final image that you would want them to carry into battle.

You can give that to your soldier to keep with him, to carry in the stars closest to his heart.

You will be given the Grace.

Always.

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You can read about the day C left for his last deployment -  "Closest to the Heart" -  HERE

The Momma Side of Me

I started the last post yesterday morning. I ended the post after C had gone to sleep. I started it not having a clue how true it was going to become and how quickly. I posted it understanding how very real it was.

I was feeling stronger yesterday.

C is leaving for a month for a job that has nothing to do with his upcoming deployment because someone told him to. And for whatever reason - when I told my friend - it hit me how sad I am about it. He is going to miss Eli's birthday. He missed his birthday last year. He will miss his birthday next year.

I am frustrated because this isn't anything that is going to prepare him or his men for what they are about to face - as far as my not-always-informed-mind can tell. This isn't something that his men are going with him for. When it is something that will better prepare those around him, that he is responsible for, it is easier to understand. This is preparing someone else, so that gives one way I can find some good. I know there are reasons behind this. I know that for some reason "someone" (meaning the army-gods) decided to take him away for a month, when the month after that he will be working so much I won't see him, and the month after that he will be doing who-knows-what. I know, I know that there is reason behind this that in the Army world makes sense, that is important, that is justified.

But as a spouse, just as a spouse - not as a leader, not as anything above this - but just as a partner to my husband, I am angry that he is going. I am angry with whoever made that decision. I am angry with the Army. I am angry that no part of that decision lies with me.

I know whoever decided this, I know wherever this came from, they had good reason. The logical side of me is arguing for them. The part of me who has been in this life knows that these things happen. That these things have a purpose and for whatever reason, C is the one who is supposed to go. The leadership side of me gets it. The leader's spouse side of me is trying to calm whatever is going on inside of me. I know that every decision matters, that every tasking serves a greater purpose. I do.

I do.

But the momma side ... the momma side had planned Eli's birthday morning over and over again. The momma side had planned to hang balloons from the ceiling, and wrap his door with crepe paper, and have birthday pancakes. The momma side was going to make this one big - just for the four of us. The momma-side-of-me, had planned for C to be home in between PT and work to share in this. The momma-side-of-me wanted to make this amazing because his daddy won't be here for the next one. His daddy wasn't here for his first one. His daddy will miss the first three. The momma-side-of-me wanted C to see Eli's joy.

The momma-side-of-me is so incredibly, incredibly sad. The momma-side ... the side that lives for that baby boy ... I never thought I would be looking at my one-year-old and think that hopefully C will be here when he turns four. That hopefully "someone" doesn't take that away from us. To think that I hope he is here when Eli turns four ... then that fear comes in ... that "what if something happens ... " Oh, Lord.

The wife side of me is angry. Not at C. None of this is his fault. Not at any one person. As the spouse, as the partner,  I am just angry. Angry because this just doesn't seem fair.

I know it is never fair.

This is the life. There will always be times that we want to yell at "someone", anyone really. What the Army needs and what we need are rarely the same. What the Army sees to be the right thing is hardly ever what we see to be the fair thing. We live a life where the loves-of-our-lives belong to "someone" else, who go when someone else tells them to go, who miss birthdays because someone else deems something else more important. This is the life. This is the hardest part of the greatest life. When they are asked, they will go and we will never be asked if it is okay. It is never up to us.

Today I am sad and a little bit angry. And some of that anger, really most of that anger, comes from the fact that there really isn't "someone" to be angry at. That this is just how it is. That this is just the life we live. That we do not decide when and how our family is together. That we do not decide if they are here or not. None of it is up to us.

The momma-side-of-me is sad for today and will be sad on Eli's big day. But the momma-side-of-me is still going to hang balloons, and still wrap his door, and still make some-kind-of multi-colored mess for him to eat. The partner-side-of-me is going to record every moment, and tell my C every detail, and cry when I hang up that phone because the partner-side-of-me will hurt that he isn't here, will hurt how he will hurt.

The army-wife-side-of-me, will find the joy in my boys, will show joy to our boys, will soldier on and make it through. Because the birthdays that he will one day get to be here for will be most precious. The job that he does is beyond important. The time that we are apart will not last forever.

This is the life. The much harder part of this life. But when we have made it through, when we commit every day to thrive, this is - beyond words - the most beautiful life.