Chris's Blogs

4/10/2018

Pictures

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First off, everyone needs to know that I am not a scrapbooker.
I would love to be but can not find the time or the creative energy to do such massive projects. They overwhelm me. My husband, I think, knowing this-- with the help of my kids, and a few other family members --made me a scrapbook for Christmas.
It is wonderful and I love it.

As I was flipping through it, I began to see a pattern. All of the pictures of me are pre-army wife or taken during R and R (EML). I am missing for a good five years in the photos. There are pictures of my kids, dogs, neighbors, family members, field trips, one of my daughter for every day that my husband was in Iraq the first time but very few of me. Heck even the picture on this website here is a self photo!

It saddens me that I am missing from our photo story during those times.
Years from now, I would love for my kids to see me interacting in the activities that we did.

For them to know that we still lived during deployments and that I could smile for them and the camera even when my world was chaos. My sister-in-law first recognized this when she was trying to set up something for me on the web that required a picture (not a dating site☺). I never really thought about it again until now.

I wish I had.

I know that they will recognize that I was behind the camera and preserving their faces for their father while he was away.
I know that they will have memories of the camera constantly clicking and me saying “One more for Papa.”
And I will now figure out how to work the timer on my camera. (If it has one?)

Take pictures, lots of them, even if they are self portraits.

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3/26/2018

Deafening

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There's a horrible sort of silence that happens when the space where someone else should be is empty.
It's so much of nothing, when you're expecting something, that you are all but deafened.

The silence is deafening.

My skin is crawling and I have to do something.
The walls are closing in on me.

This day is dragging on and on.

Will it ever end?

My skin doesn’t even feel right.

I am alone.
It is monotonous.

It is terrifying and I don’t know what to do with myself.

The kids are cleaned and occupied. The house is clean. Dogs fed and walked. Three home cooked meals done and dishes washed. Laundry folded and put away. Even dessert is in the oven.
What now? Nothing-- there is nothing.

Nothing but the missing.
The missing of everything he is:, his arms, his smell, his voice, his smile, and his presence.

I am alone.

I talk on the phone but what is there to say? How do you explain this?
“Yeah, everything is fine here.”

I look at the computer but he isn’t there either. I can’t fill this void, this emptiness. I need something to do. I need to feel something other then this impending silence.

“Why will today not end?”

Every minute feels like an hour; every hour like an eternity. I put on my “I’m fine” face and move through the day. I see people that are really fine and wonder if we will ever be that way again. I feel dark and empty. I feel a loss- a loss of time, a loss of patience, a loss of hope, loss of me, a loss of him and a loss of us.

I feel closed off and in limbo, always waiting for him.
Waiting to be us for any amount of time. I am dreading the night where his absences will be so evident that I won’t be able to hide from it. I will lie on only half the bed and wish for his snores. I will reach for him and wish him goodnight even if it will never reach his ears. I will cry.

This will pass.
Tomorrow will be different and then I will be able to breathe.
I will find something to fill that day and the one after.
They won’t feel as long or as overwhelming, but I dread these days.

These forever days.

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2/26/2018

Denial

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It's hard to face things that are huge, and terrifying.
It can be one of the most difficult things you've ever done.

And it is beyond hard, sometimes, to really grasp the reality of things that haven't yet happened to you.
Of things that are real, yet not within your perceived reality.

But it can be especially hard to face the reality of what is happening, when you understand what you stand to lose if it all goes horribly wrong.

The first time my husband was supposed to deploy he didn’t.
However six months later, he did.
When he told me leave was getting cut short and he was going to Iraq, I just blew it off because it changed before and it would again.
So I thought.

We enjoyed two weeks instead of four traveling around in an RV with two dogs and our daughter, Haley, who was six months at the time. It was great. I didn’t even think that he really was going to go to war or what that meant.

He left a week after we returned.

I denied the fact that soldiers were dying and that one of those soldiers was lying in bed with me at night. This soldier, the love of my life and the father of my daughter, was leaving for war. I blocked it and it wasn’t real for me. I couldn’t even try to imagine how life would be with him in Iraq.
Not being able to share the experience of being parents for the first time with each other.
Not having him there to see his brand new baby roll over for the first time or help give her a bath after she tried real food for the first time.
I could not comprehend, nor did I want to, how our lives were going to be different.

Now getting closer to the end of a third deployment, I see how I do this every time he leaves and every time he gets back.
At first it is always, “he might not go or they (the Army) will change it.”
Or, “we haven’t really changed during this last year or more.”
Eventually he goes and then reality hits.
He will leave.
How can this not change who we are?

I used to focus on the assumption that he would do his tour and he would come home. We would continue like nothing happened and we would be us again.
Then at 0545 in the morning, during our second deployment, I was rocking our second war baby and I saw a government vehicle parked at the dead end just down from my house.
I stopped breathing.
I watched the clock and I stood there looking out the window at the car that would deliver the unthinkable news: Someone had died.
My heart stopped and the fifteen minutes that it took for that car to drive past my house was the longest period of time that I have ever felt.
I sighed with relief and cried.
Thankful that it wasn’t me getting told the news that my spouse was gone and terrified for the spouse that was going to get the knock on the door and the news that all of us fear the most.
It hit me in that moment that he might not come back.

He might not come back this time.

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2/11/2018

My Kids Are Missing Out

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What is your list?
We all keep one.
The things missed out on.
Those of us with children?
That list weighs heavier than almost everything else.
That guilt, and fear, and worry that it means we do not love them as we should.
But it's not true.

My kids do not know how to ride their bikes.
I try and help one and then the other needs a push or his helmet fixed.

Then Haley falls and doesn’t want to try again.
Then Wolfe wants to do something else and then Haley needs a drink.
Then the phone rings.

I never seem to have enough hands or enough time to do the little things.

The things that take more patience and time seem to fall to the sidelines, more so than the regular automatic staples. There are always dishes to be done, dogs to take to the vet, lawns to be mowed, and laundry to do.

My kids are missing out.
They are missing out on having a father.
A father that I keep telling them is there for them, loves them, and wants to teach them how to ride their bikes. He wants to be a part of their childhood and he tries.
But what about the time that is passing when he can’t and my plate is so full of trivial things that stack up in an instant, but still need to be done?

What about the times when I am so riddled with worry and concern about his safety that I can’t find the energy to read one more book or re-do the nail polish in a different color?
What about the times when I drop everything for a phone call that might be him?
How do I not push them to the side when a news blurb flies across the screen and my heart falls, waiting to explode?
How when I haven’t heard from him in days do I concentrate on a conversation about Taylor Swift when I am hoping that there will not be a knock on my door?

My kids are missing out and I am trying to do the job of two parents.

He missed both of their first years.
He missed potty training them both, and now they are missing out.
On learning to ride their bikes, wrestling, fishing, and fart talk.

I feel like I am failing them, failing them all.
I feel like am not good enough.
I don’t do enough.
I can’t do enough.
I don’t know how to do his job.

How can I be Dad, Mom, and military spouse?

I don’t know how but I do it anyway.
I try my best and yes they still do not know how to ride their bikes.

But I make sure to kiss them every chance I get.
I make sure to tell them that they are loved and adored by us both.
I apologize when I screw -up and make sure I do not add a “but you.…”
I struggle and I mess up but I keep trying.
I keep loving them.
I remind myself that I am human and so are they.
I remind myself that they are just children and to give them a little more room to be children.

They did not ask for this life and it is my job to take care of them the best that I can, for me, my husband, and for them.

I love them even if they do not know how to ride their bikes.

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1/28/2018

What Will She Think

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We fear a lot of outside views.
Our neighbors.
Our friends.
Our spouses or lovers.
The government.
Other countries.
At the end of the day, though, for parents, there is only one view that we fear the most.
The way our children view us.
What are we showing them, what will they think about who we are and what we've taught them with our actions?

I look into the eyes of my daughter and I squeeze her ever growing hand, wondering what she will remember of these times.

What will she remember of me?

She remembers so much detail from years ago and I worry which moments will stick out for her in the future.

Am I being strong enough for her?

Am I being the kind of woman I want her to grow to be?

Am I showing her how to face life with grace and understanding?

Am I showing her how to be the one in the driver seat to take control of her life and not let it happen to her but to make things happen for her?

Am I giving her the tools to be happy?

Or are these deployments and separations keeping me so thinly stretched that all she will remember is someone barely hanging on to her sanity?

Will she remember me sitting in the bathroom trying not let them hear me cry after we said goodbye the second time?
Will she remember that I tried time and time again to make a difference for the families around us?
Will she remember a stressed out crazed mom that never had enough time to play Barbies for as long as she wanted to?
Will I be blamed for the years that she has missed with her father or will she commend me for fighting through deployment after deployment?
What will her opinions be?
What will history say of us?

I wonder if she will remember the endless hours on the phone and the computer trying to help other families or will she just see that as time that I chose them over her?
Will she find the spouses of these wars as strong, courageous, wonderful women who she can admire and aspire to be like as I do with the women of WWII?
What lessons will stick with her that will help her in her life?

I try every day to remember that I am the model she has.

I am her teacher of how to tackle life and her eyes are always watching and judging.
I am the one who shows her through example how to live.

That is a cross every mother bears and we must strive every moment to bear it with grace.
This doesn’t mean I don’t mess it up, but it does mean that I need to acknowledge my failings and ask for forgiveness as well as try to improve the next time I screw up.
It does mean that when I need help I need to ask for it, and when I am drowning I need to acknowledge it.
That is what I want her to be able to do and that is what I should do.
I should not be ashamed of not being able to do everything and I need to ask for help when I need it.

Suffering in silence does not help anyone.

What will our children think of how we faced these wars?

What will be said to their children about us?

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1/19/2018

Accepted Perfection

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Often, we feel as if we have to be perfect.
So perfect.
No cracks, not a thing out of place.
Chris was the one who really brought the idea of accepted perfection to the group.
That at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what we do, it matter who we are.
How we show up not just for others, but for our own selves.

Perfection…. To me perfection is having someone that we don’t have to explain everything to. We find that in each other. We find that when we reach out and say that it is a bad day and we don’t have to say anything else. We are accepted. We are welcomed into the warmth of understanding by each other and we don’t have to pretend anymore. We don’t have to show our iron back bones and the arms that never stop waving our flags. We don’t have to hang ourselves with our yellow ribbons. We accept that there are others out there doing the same thing and we accept that we are not alone. We accept that we have a voice and that we can make a choice: talk or not to talk.
One of the best ways I have found to get into my groove of a deployment is to relate to another spouse because they know what it is like. I don’t have to tell them anything. We could just be sitting watching our kids play and that is enough to get to the next day. It lessens the burden. It gives you grownup contact and it allows you to be just you for a moment or two. Not Supermom. Not gung-ho military spouse, FRG leader or author. It lets you breathe. It is important to be able to breathe and not have to put on any number of the masks that we wear during these wars.
So, even if you are supposed to get the lawn mowed or the dishes washed, always take some time to breath. The grass will still be there in a moment, and the dishes will too. Our spouse can even hang out in the car waiting for us to wrap up the phone call so we can go out because these moments are what get us through. We lean on each other. It might be the only time that you are truly understood that day or the other person;s only chance to talk to a grownup. Our soldier wouldn’t leave his battle buddy outside the gate while he went in, and neither do we. We ride the same roller coaster and we are in this war together.

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1/11/2018

The Twelve Pains of Deployment

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It's past the holidays now, but this Twelve Pains poem rings true no matter the time.

The twelve things of deployment that are such a pain to me:

12 missed calls while errand running

11 Murphy’s Laws attacking

10 FRG functions happening

9 gained pounds wiggling, jiggling

8 months left of waiting

7 neighbor kids visiting

6 of them fighting

5 animals to feed!!!

4 loads of laundry needs washing

3 Three toilets leaking

2 CYS hours left for using

And finding where the movers hid the tree.

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12/15/2017

Denial is Easy

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Denial is easy.

We default to it when we do not want to believe something.

You get a positive pregnancy test and you go take another because that first one could be a wrong.

You find out that a friend from high school married your ex-boyfriend and you insist that it is a joke.

When our spouses are getting ready to deploy we notice all the things that annoy us about them.
We hide behind these little annoying things.

We bury the real issue, the fact that we are going to miss them while they are gone.
We are going to worry.
We will be lying awake at night wondering if they are going outside the wire or if the threat will come to their FOB (forward operating base).

We hide.

We hide the fear, the anger, and our feelings.

This is normal.

It is how we cope.

It gives our brains time to come to terms with the stress and the change.

It gives us time to find a way to survive the battles that are in our near future.

So we fight our soldiers over the little things.
We nick pick their every wrong move and we hide from the real bombs a little longer.

This is normal.

This is survival.

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Chris's Blogs

Pictures

Deafening

Denial

My Kids Are Missing Out

What Will She Think

Accepted Perfection

The Twelve Pains of Deployment

Denial is Easy

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