This has been the hardest post for me to write. It should be the easiest one. Sprout and his bride had the most beautiful wedding. There was candlelight, Christmas trees, flowers, and a brass quartet. It could not have been more perfect. They spent Christmas in town visiting family and friends and then headed off to honeymoon their way across the country back to Armyland. Everything is good.
So why am I having so much trouble writing this? Why have I sat down five times to type only to get up and walk away on the verge of tears? I think because in my mind the order of my life lately has been - thanksgiving...wedding...Christmas...DEPLOYMENT!!! Now that the wedding and Christmas have passed, my mind is focused on Sprout's upcoming deployment. I have to get ready. I have to prepare myself. This week I even bought this and have put it away to send to Sprout NEXT Christmas...his deployemnt tree.
I feel the need do something now to prepare myself for the time when my son is at war. I have always been one of those women who thinks of everything. When we travel, I am the one who makes sure we have the credit card, the maps, our toothbrushes. There are always spare lightbulbs and toilet paper in my house. I am always as prepared as best I can be.
But how am I supposed to prepare for this? How do I ready myself for a year of constant worry? How do I accept the fact that my son is going to a place where he must sleep with his rifle in order to protect himself? What I would really like to do is go to Iraq, find out exactly where Sprout will be living, check out his quarters, build a few brick walls around his temporary home and clear the entire country of bad guys and bad things. Instead I am stuck contemplating the useless junk I can buy to send to him while he is away.
When Sprout was home this time, he was excited and busy and giddy with wedding stuff, but under it all I could see his worry, his fear creeping in and out of his expressions. I know that having his wife with him now will do him a world of good. He will have someone there to talk to at night when the world gets quiet and the long days of preparing for battle have ended. I am so glad they decided to get married before he left for war. I would hate for him to have to go through all these hard preparations without a soulmate to help him cope.
Now, if I can just figure out how I will cope.
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