Reception Perceptions

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-- Caelanwolf - griffey chriss - Shakespeare's Monkeys

A couple events lead me to want to document the following.

I co-moderate an online community for significant others of military service members. The bulk of the active participants (there are over 700 members) are wives or girlfriends, with a few scattered soldiers (who are either girlfriends or boyfriends of other service members) and a husband here and there. A recent new member asked how to "not think about the fact that they might not come home" and was smacked with the response that if you were to actually say that to the face of any military spouse they would surely punch you out, or harshly correct your statement. They WILL come home. You don't for a second ever think they won't. Because they will. That's just the way it is.

Christmas day, after my husband called and we chatted a bit, and then chatted online over IM a few minutes more, I was attempting to get some sleep (haha!) and I wound up thinking back to the last time I actually saw my husband. Not much makes me cry, but reliving that scene in my mind brings tears to the surface.

The whole night just felt, unreal. Rewind. That morning we didn't know if we'd get to say goodbye. Some COs are not nice, and don't let families attend when the boys are getting ready to leave for the buses and planes. We weren't sure if he'd be released for some family time beforehand or not. We weren't even sure what time he'd physically be leaving. So I told him I'd see him soon, he got his gear, said goodbye to the cats, and left. All day I wondered if that was "it". If I was going to get to see him again, or not. I feared I wouldn't, but hoped I would.

Army Wife Motto #1: Plan for the worst, hope it can't GET worse than that, but secretly hope for the best. 

He called me, or something, and I found out that we'd have about 10 hours together, before he had to report to his troop's building. They had to be there around 2300hrs or 0000hrs, I can't remember, and were set to officially ship out around 0600hrs.

I picked him up from work and we went home just to spend time together. All the tears I wouldn't let myself cry in the months leading up to this night came flowing out of me, uncontrollably. I knew it was useless to stop them, and even though I wanted to be strong for my husband, I wanted to be honest as well, and I know he loves a chance to be my comfort, to be my personal hero. So we held each other and I cried, we made love, we slept in each other's arms for the last time for so many months. I wished the nap we took would have taken 15 months and that we could have just slept through the deployment and woken up in each other's arms and the war, or at very least he's 2nd tour, would be over and we wouldn't even have known it. But no dice.

We woke up to our alarm, and we both had this silent, undestanding, knowing, sad and stoic "air" to us. We seemed both in a bit of a daze or a haze, or stuck in a cloud. My husband put his uniform on, and I tucked folded pictures of he and I together, of our cats, into the pockets. I kissed the pictures when he wasn't looking. I looked into his eyes and tried to memorize everything about him in that one moment. I took pictures of him saying goodbye to our boys, Dmitry and Tie (our two kitties). Those pictures sit beside the computer monitor, they are two of the sweetest pictures every taken.

I drove my husband to his troop building, with a heavy heart. I was, and am, very proud of him for the choices he has made in his life, but with a selfish sense of loss as well. Temporary loss, yes, but nontheless. For the next 15 months I am responsible for our life. I will pay the bills, feed the cats, drive the car. I will scoop all the litter boxes, buy stamps, go grocery shopping (yes, sometimes at 0400hrs!) and vacuum, do the dishes, the laundry, you name it - it's all on me. I take these responsibilities as well as my job and college seriously, with pride and dignity, but also with a touch of sadness. I don't hide this sadness, but I don't wear it on my sleeve, either. No one but my cats see me cry. The tears are just for me, and no one else. They happen seldomly, but they are my guilty pleasure. A release much needed in times of frustration, loneliness, heart-sickness.

But, I digress. I watched my husband-best-friend, and several of the other soldiers whom I have grown somewhat attached to (Manlove, Frankie, and Sam, in particular) wander around putting last minute touches on their packs, lining up their duffels, getting their assigned weapons.

The parking lot was dark, and it started to get cold. At one point my husband and I just sat on his duffel  bag and held each other. Some of the boys walked around with that "thousand mile stare" in their faces, the young kids who'd never been to the "vacation spa in the desert" as SGT S referred to it. I'm pretty sure I had on a good impression of that look at one point.

Some of the soldiers I didn't even know were telling me to smile, that he would come home to me, that they would take care of him, and would make sure he'd come back to me. It was even a little reassuring. I know he will come home, I don't worry about him like that, really, but it was very sweet of them to think of me. They knew me, but I didn't know them, I guess I have a bit of a reputation for being "the cool wife" among his old troop, haha.

My friend Sam's wife and their two beautiful girls were there, and getting ready to go home. I had brought my canon rebel camera just to take pictures of Sam and his babies. He had tears in his eyes when I told him that, told me I was a "good woman" and hugged me. I took pictures in the dark, and hoped they turned out well. (They did, they are at the same time the saddest and happiest pictures I've ever seen) Seeing Sam cry saying goodbye to his babies was the saddest part of all. I'd been preparing to say See You Soon to my husband for a year, but nothing prepared me to watch that.  

It began to get later and later in the morning, and I was to be up for work at 0600hrs - life doesn't stop just because your husband goes to war - so around 0300hrs I had to get home and get some rest. I was already going to be fairly useless at work the next morning, so adding in too much sleep deprivation was not a good idea. I told my love I had to go, regretted I couldn't stay and see him onto the bus, and follow the bus to the airfield hahaha... he understood. He walked me away from the crowd of sodiers and their guns and toward my car. Every step felt like we were farther and farther apart already. I was so thankful at that moment for the time we had spent together. Leaving my career, my school (temporarily) and all of my friends behind was the right choice. Just to spend 9 months with him in the bitter cold upstate NY (not to mention BORING) - it was all worth it. A hundred times over. I don't know what I'd do now, with him gone, if I didn't have all the wonderful comfortable memories to curl up in at night when it's just me, the cats, and my pillows.

We said "no goodbyes, it's see you soon", something I learned from the Cree Indians I lived with when I was a teenager. He said "I like that... see you soon. Yea." and smiled that beautiful smile. We hugged, kissed, and I got in my car, started the engine. He started to back away from the car and I rolled down the window for just one last kiss. Just one, please, one more. I didn't cry, I couldn't. There weren't any tears, just this gaping emptiness I know would fill with all of our beautiful memories, but for the next week or so would be a raw empty open pit of loneliness.

I drove through the Troop building parking lot slowly, and saw him in my rearview mirror. Watching me leave him. Standing there, almost at attention, as if he, too, were trying to take in every last inch of me, watching me until I was gone and out of sight. I wanted nothing more but to turn around, open the passenger door and say HOP IN BABEY! and run away to Canada. And at the same time I knew this was the life we chose, and there are powerful reasons why we both have done so.

I hope reading this you saw the beauty of Us in it, and not only the sadness and loneliness in my heart. I have so much love for my husband and I'd walk through anything for and with him. What we have is strong, and I do believe unbreakable. I miss you, my love. I miss you. Come home to me. (I know you will.)