The Deployment Diaries...Part 1
She who seems to always have a lot to say has been awfully quiet this year. Two blog posts since January? What's up?
Well, we spent the first half of the year dealing with a deployment, that's what's up. And though we were basically doing well, the thing that was most on my mind to write about was something I didn't want to broadcast at the time—not great "ops sec" to advertise that your husband is away for several months, you know.
I am happy to report that he returned home to us in July, and we all had a wonderful summer together before he went back to work and the girls went back to school a few weeks ago. He is safe and sound, the girls and I survived with our sanity {mostly} in tact, and the dog did not do herself in, either—neither by eating a bar of soap, nor by ingesting multiple socks. (Stay tuned for those crazy stories!)
Here is Installment One of The Deployment Diaries...
January 13, 2017
Stephen will have been away for a week tomorrow…tomorrow evening, to be exact. And I find myself wanting to record some of this, much in the same way that I did when I was expecting our girls. Is our situation that unusual? No. But not everyone experiences a deployment, that’s for sure. I think of some dear friends of ours who have rarely spent a night away from each other in 40 years of marriage… In that light, six months seems like a long time.
I am thankful for technology, that he is somewhere that is friendly towards Americans, that he is not in combat. I had no reason to be fearful of this deployment the way that so many wives are and have been throughout human history. But we love him. He has been my best friend for nearly 22 years, and as Hillary put it—it’s like losing a leg. We have been very fortunate to only have dealt with one little four-month deployment to Guam in the 15 ½ years that he has served in the Air Force—before our girls were born. They have had the benefit of having Daddy around…and have only recently had to dread the thought of his departure. The anxiety was evident. We waited until late September to tell them, so that they wouldn’t have to anticipate it for too long but would still have time to process and prepare…Abigail couldn’t fall asleep before 10:30 between November 1 and Christmas. And the last week he was home was rough.
I hesitate to compare it to this, but I kept thinking about how my feelings in the last weeks that he was home were similar to the way I felt in the weeks before Mama [my grandmother] died. We knew it was going to happen. We knew it needed to happen. We knew she was going to a better place and that while we would miss her, we would all be okay. We would adjust. Life would go on—mostly full of joy, sometimes with tender reminders of the one we missed. And yet we were sad. It was like having a weight on our hearts at all times, dreading the moment she would go, knowing that there were tears ahead that would inevitably come with saying goodbye.
In the days and weeks before Stephen left, I found myself crying at daily moments that I knew we would soon have to miss for several months. Reading to the girls at bedtime. Dancing in the kitchen after dinner. It sucks when the things that usually bring you joy start to bring you down, when you have difficulty not letting the tears of tomorrow spill over and ruin the happiness of today.
Last week was a roller coaster. Anxiety over his leaving. Readiness for him to just go ahead and leave. Enjoying some time off before he left. Having time off taken away as he tried (in vain) to get his deployment orders from work. Plans for the girls to stay home on Friday so we could try to enjoy the day together before his scheduled Saturday morning departure. Caroline coming down with the cough/cold that had hit Stephen and Abigail in late December, running a 103.7-degree fever on Friday. Stephen’s orders not coming through til close of business on Friday. And then a blizzard heading for southern Virginia, where he was headed to catch a rotator out of Norfolk. Do you still need to drive out of here Saturday morning? Is that flight even going to take off?
After racing around Friday night to be ready to go Saturday morning, we were greeted with snow Saturday morning and the news that the rotator was delayed, probably 24 hours, though we couldn’t be sure. We sat in a peaceful snowglobe all day Saturday, getting a much-needed reprieve from the stress of the week before. Caroline’s temperature had improved. We watched movies, and Stephen did a few chores around the house that he’d hoped to do, but had run out of time to do by Friday. We had a nice dinner together of leftovers from the past two nights of family favorites—venison meatballs…
And then, lacking any better information, it was decided that he should go ahead and leave right after dinner, just in case his rotator was going to take off as soon as the Norfolk airfield reopened at 0900 Sunday morning. We knew all day that this might be the decision that would be made, but our peaceful snow day instantly turned to the misery of knowing that Stephen’s departure was imminent. Tears immediately came to my eyes. We tried to play the card game that we’d planned to play after dinner, but we should have known that it was a lost cause. Abigail was crying within minutes, and then we were all in tears. We couldn’t help it. Stephen held it together for a little while, but even he was crying before long. Which probably only made the girls cry more—they rarely see me cry, and they’d never seen Stephen cry. It was gut-wrenching.
He finished the last of the last-minute packing, while the girls wisely distracted themselves in front of the TV, and he loaded his rental car. It was time to say goodbye. We had our last hugs and kisses and waved goodbye. Sigh…
The girls and I finished watching the show they’d started watching on TV, and then it was time for bed. They climbed into bed with me, and Caroline fell asleep almost immediately. Abigail snuggled for a while and then was content to go to sleep in her own bed. I didn’t sleep great that night, but I slept.
And then, it was a new day.
As I expected, we woke up Sunday feeling much better. Caroline had been running a fever Saturday night, and we were all sort-of hung-over from the emotions of the night before, so we stayed home from church, spent much of the day in our PJs, and soothed ourselves with Anne of Green Gables. But we were okay. Abigail was maybe a little touchy, but we had a pretty good day. And Abigail fell asleep that night without any trouble.
First week observations:
The routine of school definitely helped. Part of me has wished that we had the freedom to travel during this time, but the week went quickly with the girls at school, and I’m thankful for that.
I finally succumbed to the family cold this week, but only enough to force me to take it easy—not so much that I couldn’t cook dinner. God is good.
Abigail fell asleep easily almost every night this week—I’m so relieved that it does, in fact, seem to have been pre-deployment anxiety that was keeping her awake, and that now that she can see that life is ok, she’s back to falling asleep normally.
We’ve been able to Facetime with Stephen almost every day, which has been awesome! It took a few days for him to leave Norfolk (so frustrating for him), and while it would have been nice for him to come back home, it would have also been too much for the girls to deal with saying goodbye again.
Some things that have surprised me:
Cooking dinner has been easier than expected. I was dreading just cooking for the three of us, but I think that, whereas if Stephen’s away for a few nights, I’ll hold off on cooking a steak or pork chops or something real until he gets home, he won’t be home in a few nights. So I’ve just cooked as I normally do, maybe making less or having more leftovers.
It’s lonelier in the evenings than I expected. So often, if Stephen’s away for a few days, I find myself looking forward to watching a chick flick or something after I get the girls to bed, only to have him call at 9:00 and get in the way of my “me time.” But with him eight hours ahead, he can’t call in the evenings because he’s asleep, and it’s a little sad knowing that the phone isn’t going to ring after dinner.
I seem to have more leisure time. I know that I tend to be more methodical when I’m solo, but it’s still surprising to me that I’ve found myself reaching for books to read, crossword puzzles, solitaire, drawing… We’ll see if this lasts after the things that Stephen did in preparation for his departure need to be done again…by me.
To be continued...
