On Soaking Up the Moment

Like all military families across this big wide world, at some point the inevitable happens…your loved one gets orders that they must deploy soon. It’s for the greater good. It’s for the mission. This I know, in my head at least because it is what I have been learned to know. Afterall this is not your first rodeo, and it’s not my first either. Even still, even after all of these years, after over a decade of doing this, my throat still closes up a little when I think about you walking out of our lives once again.

This time the kids are older. This time they have an idea that 6 months is half of one year. Half of one year of their little lives, without you.

I think about this as we roam the aisles at Costco on a Saturday afternoon. The kids are hanging off the cart, while you push through the crowds with your big strong arms. I walk behind the four of you, grabbing items from the shelves you missed, smiling as you tickle the kids or pretend you’re a bus driver and they have to pay to jump back on again.

And I think about going to Costco without you. I will push the heavy cart; I will pretend to be the bus driver and turn a mundane trip to the store into something our children will remember when they are grown. I will step into your shoes and play your games, so they won’t feel the pain of missing you quite so much. At night I will tuck them into bed, and we will pray for you as you live and work thousands of miles away from this home that we have built. I will quietly shut their doors and walk back into the empty living room. I will be without you.

But not now. Now we are sitting on the back deck. It is October, the fall sunshine is shifting through orange-colored leaves. You are sitting across the outdoor couch from me, eating lunch and commenting randomly on an article you are reading. If I moved my foot a few inches forward I would feel your knee. All at once I do just that. I push off my slippers with my feet and stretch my toes out until I find you. I push them underneath your bent knee. They are warm now.

In a few months they will be cold, and I will be without you because you got orders that you must deploy soon.

-Helen