If you're reading this
Half way around the world
I won't be there to see the birth of our little girl...
....
A deployment isn't over until you are holding your soldier. Then you start what is called: Reintegration. But between redeployment and reintegration is a small space of time: when you know your soldier is out of the war zone and waiting for a ride back home.
For me, this small space of time seemed endless. My mind wandered to thoughts of being so close to the end and the possibility of "bad" still happening. I couldn't sleep. I wish I couldn't eat. And I was so anxious about something happening when he was halfway home that I forgot to do all of the "stuff" we military spouses are "supposed" to do for the big homecoming: make the signs, bake the brownies, and tell the kids: Dad is coming home. Seriously. I forgot. Well, maybe I didn't forget. You see: I'm very superstitious.
So when the call came saying he was less than 10 hours out from touchdown, I was almost shocked it was going to happen. I scrambled to pull things together. Up went a big sign - thankfully, a fellow military spouse had sent me her "traveling" welcome home sign. I hastily made some ribbons for the house. And threw some brownies in the oven at midnight.
Daddy was homing home.
***
But, for some, a deployment ends differently.
Often, I was upset with myself for not being able to write either a blog post, an article or an essay on the families who do not have a soldier to hug at a welcome ceremony. The widows. The widowers. The mothers and fathers who lose a son. The girlfriends and boyfriends who lose their future brides and grooms. I just couldn't do it.
Maybe because I am superstitious. Maybe I couldn't bear the emotions. Maybe, maybe, maybe I was failing my fellow military spouses.
I remember reading an essay that a widow wrote soon after she lost her husband. She commented that other spouses seemed to avoid her because they were worried it would "rub off" - that death was contagious.
***
As my husband's plane landed, as the wheels hit the ground, I turned to a perfect stranger and said, "now I can breath." And I remember feeling as if the world had been lifted off of my shoulders as I filled up my lungs with that fresh morning air. I could breath.
And, a few days later, I could begin writing more about something I wish I had the courage to write about for the last year:
Those whose breath was taken away by a knock at the door. Those who have sacrificed their futures. Those names and faces who would not be stepping off of a plane. Those men and women who need to become real to the American public. Those daddies, mommies, sons and daughters who are not coming home.
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