I don’t know what to do with the bookending of all he has missed.
I look at the picture of my now 17-year old, then 7 *weeks* old propped up on his knees having this heart to heart conversion with her Daddy the night before he left for a deployment…
Then I look at the photo I took just this morning of that 17-year old going to the first day of her senior year, while he is gone. Again.
I look from the first photo to the next and back again. And it takes my breath away. How can it be 17 years after that tiny baby’s photo–she was still wearing 0-3 month clothes in it!–and he is still missing firsts? How do I wrap my head around that? How do they? How does he?
I think about my oldest, going through their first deployment before they were even a year old…
And then I think about how I will pack up a car and bring them to college in two weeks. They are also beginning a senior year without Dad. 19 years passed in between and still… the gone.
How do you square that in your heart and your mind? All the time and all the milestones? First words, first steps, first crawling. First days of school, all the way up to First days of their Senior Years.
How do we make it ok?
The reality it is, we don’t. We can’t. It isn’t.
The reality also is, it’s fine. We’re fine. He’s fine. They’re fine. It’s fine. It’s always fine… So much finer than it has ever made sense to be.
We have LIVED with him and without him. We have grown and healed and learned and experienced with him and without him.
We have been a family with him and without him. Had fun with him and without him. Wept with him and without him. Struggled and ached and been broken with him and without him.
We have learned that life is not contingent on his being here. We live and evolve and are–in the good, the bad, and all the shades in between with him and without him.
Years ago…. When we first started this life, I thought I knew what that meant. I thought I knew what it would mean to have him miss so much. I thought I knew how that would feel… The ache of it. The unfairness. The “sacrifice.” I heard people talk about it. I heard it referenced at ceremonies and command events. I thought I understood what it would look like and what it would mean.
I didn’t.
Where I stand now I feel so much:
Sadness for what he has missed. Anger at how unfair it is. Complexity. Resentment that we are still doing this, that he is still gone. That we will never get that time back.
And also I feel so much:
Resilience (even though I shudder at the word) for all we have walked through. Strength for who my kids and I have become. Pride at the incredible people they have become not because of all the time he has missed, not even in spite of it… but with it baked in to the leaven of who they are, how they see the world, and what they have survived and continued to survive.
He has been away for literal years of their childhood. And those are years we won’t get back.
This life… the deployments, the goneness, the war–oh yes! Remember we were at war!--The trauma… it has taken more than its pound of flesh from each of us. I ask myself daily, “how do we process what it has been to be a military family for this long?” How do we unpack the reality of that and what it has done to each of our souls and hearts and bodies?
The fact of the matter is, I don’t know the answer. I can’t yet because we are still living the questions all these years later. My kids: 19, 17, and 13. 21 years of marriage. 21 years of the Navy. 10, or is it 11 deployments later… We are still IN IT.
So for now, all I can do is look back and forth at these pictures. See the reality and continue to ask myself…
What do I do with these bookends?
I look at the picture of my now 17-year old, then 7 *weeks* old propped up on his knees having this heart to heart conversion with her Daddy the night before he left for a deployment…
Then I look at the photo I took just this morning of that 17-year old going to the first day of her senior year, while he is gone. Again.
I look from the first photo to the next and back again. And it takes my breath away. How can it be 17 years after that tiny baby’s photo–she was still wearing 0-3 month clothes in it!–and he is still missing firsts? How do I wrap my head around that? How do they? How does he?
I think about my oldest, going through their first deployment before they were even a year old…
And then I think about how I will pack up a car and bring them to college in two weeks. They are also beginning a senior year without Dad. 19 years passed in between and still… the gone.
How do you square that in your heart and your mind? All the time and all the milestones? First words, first steps, first crawling. First days of school, all the way up to First days of their Senior Years.
How do we make it ok?
The reality it is, we don’t. We can’t. It isn’t.
The reality also is, it’s fine. We’re fine. He’s fine. They’re fine. It’s fine. It’s always fine… So much finer than it has ever made sense to be.
We have LIVED with him and without him. We have grown and healed and learned and experienced with him and without him.
We have been a family with him and without him. Had fun with him and without him. Wept with him and without him. Struggled and ached and been broken with him and without him.
We have learned that life is not contingent on his being here. We live and evolve and are–in the good, the bad, and all the shades in between with him and without him.
Years ago…. When we first started this life, I thought I knew what that meant. I thought I knew what it would mean to have him miss so much. I thought I knew how that would feel… The ache of it. The unfairness. The “sacrifice.” I heard people talk about it. I heard it referenced at ceremonies and command events. I thought I understood what it would look like and what it would mean.
I didn’t.
Where I stand now I feel so much:
Sadness for what he has missed. Anger at how unfair it is. Complexity. Resentment that we are still doing this, that he is still gone. That we will never get that time back.
And also I feel so much:
Resilience (even though I shudder at the word) for all we have walked through. Strength for who my kids and I have become. Pride at the incredible people they have become not because of all the time he has missed, not even in spite of it… but with it baked in to the leaven of who they are, how they see the world, and what they have survived and continued to survive.
He has been away for literal years of their childhood. And those are years we won’t get back.
This life… the deployments, the goneness, the war–oh yes! Remember we were at war!--The trauma… it has taken more than its pound of flesh from each of us. I ask myself daily, “how do we process what it has been to be a military family for this long?” How do we unpack the reality of that and what it has done to each of our souls and hearts and bodies?
The fact of the matter is, I don’t know the answer. I can’t yet because we are still living the questions all these years later. My kids: 19, 17, and 13. 21 years of marriage. 21 years of the Navy. 10, or is it 11 deployments later… We are still IN IT.
So for now, all I can do is look back and forth at these pictures. See the reality and continue to ask myself…
What do I do with these bookends?
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