Day 17 – Your favorite memory, in great detail

By far, my favorite memory as of right now is oddly enough, not the day we got married. Though it was an awesome day and everyone was fairly impressed at how cool and collected I was! This was a particularly good moment:

However, I think when he got home (for good) from the last deployment was the best so far. Sure, the fallout from the deployment was just hovering in the distance ready to give us a run for our money. But the moment that I found him on that gym floor, knowing that for the next couple of years I wouldn't have to worry about him deploying again and maybe not coming home in one piece -- it was like I had won the lottery!

In related news, we had a faculty meeting before school yesterday. It was hard on me. They had a woman there from SOS talking to the teachers because the BRAC realignment has meant an influx of combat soldiers to our installation with the high school I teach at with the largest percentage of Army-kids off post. She played a video/recording of a mother who lost her husband to an IED attack in Iraq and how it affected their two children. My heart was racing and I almost had to step out -- but I gained my composure back without too many people noticing I wasn't handling the interview well. When we PCS hubs will be joining an infantry division that (rumor has it) will be deploying to Afghan by December. God willing, we'll have a healthy 4-month old by then and I'll become a single mom of sorts. 

I used to have nightmares about the possibility of being told he would be coming home in a coffin the last time he deployed -- and we weren't even married! I knew I was his contact and every time a black, official-looking sedan came down the street I prayed it wouldn't pull into my driveway. I dreaded intercom requests for me to come down to the front office where I taught because I was afraid I'd come face to face with a CAO and a chaplain. In a word, just the possibility of him deploying (which seems very likely) leaving me behind in a new place with a new baby and a new job is terrifying. He's been infantry and deployed before and was lucky to walk away with his life. That this time he might not come back, rips my heart in half. Hell, even just getting a casualty notification is enough to put your heart on edge. Pregnancy hormones aren't helping either.

When the SOS started her presentation she asked for a show of hands of who was affiliated with the military. Maybe 10 of us raised our hands? Of those that did, most were retired or married to retired soldiers. I think maybe me and one other person are married to someone still active duty (and I think her husband is actually HR related, not combat arms). It made me feel desperately alone. I've experienced first hand what the kids of deployed soldiers have gone through and that makes me an oddity at my current school. But what made me really sick, was looking up after re-gaining my composure and seeing quite a few of my fellow co-workers tuning this woman's heartbreaking interview out and even chuckling with each other about god-knows-what, but it can't have been important. Here this school is, in the middle of a major transition, where not a few students but many are experiencing very real fear and pain over their parents' deployment. And their teachers, who are supposed to care about their well being can't give a women who's trying to help (the SOS) the time of day. If I hadn't been on the edge of losing my composure to begin with I would have walked over and had a few choice words with those who were being disrespectful.

I may end up by myself, in a new place, with a new job (hopefully) and a new baby...but at least I have confidence that where we're going next will provide me with greater support when I have to say goodbye to my husband again. God, preserve me and my family so that we can have another "favorite memory" like I described above.