Deployment

My heart hurts right now more than I thought it would. I've been here before and so that is saying something.

Well, he is gone. The hardest part was watching him kiss the twins goodbye. I felt pain, physical pain, shoot through me when he leaned down and kissed them while they slept in their car seats.

As I drove home in the darkest parts of the morning, I was sobbing in a very not-tough-as-nails fashion and repeating the phrase, "I am going to be ok. I am going to be ok. I am going to be ok." over and over again.

Then I started praying.

"God - please help me with my teenage son. He needs a dad here. I can't do this alone so please let me say the right things. He is learning how to be a man and I can't teach that on my own. Please, God, please, just let me not mess him up.

Please help the babies recognize him when he comes home. Let them be interested in the computer enough to learn to say "daddy" and connect the moving pictures on the webcam with the man that will come back. On that note, please, let him have a decent internet connection.

Please, let Ethan be ok. If he cries every night like he did before, I don't know if I'll be able to keep it together myself. I promised we were going to be positive.

Please, let me be cheerful. Let me not loose my mind too much.

Please don't let the cars or the house break down.

Please, let me be able to go to sleep easily at night.

Please, let this make us stronger. Help me remember what I already know when things get hard and let me be humble enough to learn the new things you have to teach me."




At the very beginning of our Army life, Troy sent me this quote:

"Separated lovers cheat absence by a thousand fancies which have their own reality. They are prevented from seeing one another and they cannot write nevertheless they find countless mysterious ways of corresponding, by sending each other the song of birds, the scent of flowers, the laughter of children, the light of the sun, the sighing of the wind, and the gleam of the stars-all the beauties of creation." - Victor Hugo

Oh, how true it was back then. I spoke to him on moonbeams and he could hear me. I watched him as he marched up Victory Hill and I cheered him on and whispered encouragement when things were hard. And there was so much magic when he answered me in return! I could hear his voice when I stood outside in the dark. He would tease me when I cried but then touch my face softly with the wind. You don't know what it is like to speak through time and distance like that unless you have been there. It is real. It sustains you. I am here at the beginning of another separation and trying to remind myself of these moments so it doesn't seem so bad. They are beautiful and precious because so few people understand what it is like to reach for the one you love with thoughts and emotions so intense that they can actually bridge a physical separation, and nature itself races to deliver your words to your sweetheart.

I know that only great loves endure distance. They are sharpened by it. They thrive with it. I know this is true and motivate myself through the hard parts by telling myself this. Today is a hard day.


January 2014....here we come!