Salty

On Saturday, August 6, 2011, I woke up early. I started the coffee pot and wandered bleary-eyed out into my driveway for the paper on what promised to be a beautiful summer day. I checked the world news first.

I always check the world news first, these days.

There wasn’t much there. Just protesters promising unrest and violent overthrow in Syria. Just angry Serbian mobs on the Kosovo border. Just Gadhafi propaganda about NATO strikes. These were my husband’s so-called “groundhog days” for the past year. These were what he referred to as the deadly “protest of the month” clubs. Uninterested already, my thoughts turned to the percolation progress of my morning medicine and I wandered back to the kitchen.

I stood impatiently and watched the slow trickle of that holy brown elixir, waiting for enough caffeine to descend into the glass pot to defend stealing an early cup. I flicked on CNN. I like the smell of news in the morning, before the kids wake up. That way I don’t have to keep my thumb poised and ready to strike the “channel up” button at the first sight of armored vehicles or gunfire reels, or bloodied bodies, or a man in a uniform that looks like their daddy.

I thought about my conversation with Sweet Pea the day before …

“Mommy, every time I see a man with brown hair, I think it’s Daddy. And then I get sad because it’s not him.”

“I know, honey. He’ll be home soon. We just have to hang in there a little while longer.”

“Okay, Mommy. I know.”

Lost in that thought I only half-heard the reporter … “It’s top of the hour and we have breaking news out of Afghanistan where it appears a chopper has been taken down with 31 Americans on board, 25 of them believed to be special operations forces.”

I looked up, shocked.

My husband is assigned to a joint special operations group, and my brain immediately and irrationally went to the deepest corners of fear that I keep hidden away. I knew my husband was not among them. He was rarely aboard choppers, and I knew he wasn’t “forward.” I knew if there was bad news, there would have been a Casualty Officer in a crisp Navy uniform and a Navy Chaplain at my front door. I knew, after years of hearing Husband’s instructions, that no news was good news. I convinced myself again by announcing “No news is good news,” in the direction of the front door.

I got a text from a friend attempting to reassure me. It was logic, and I knew it was true: HE’S AS SAFE AS A KITTEN. But I shot a hasty email to Husband anyway. I knew it would sit there in eerie silence. And it felt good to send a message to someone I expected a response from.

“Just getting word of the 31 who died. I’m sorry. Thinking of the friends and families left behind this morning.”

I sipped. And I stared. I got up for another cup.

I slapped my cup down on the counter in anger at the war, this deployment, the newly fatherless children, and the very, very young widows. The force of my own hand surprised me as the cold gritty remains of my coffee sloshed out a little, and I stared at the spill as if leaving it there underlined my anger. It quickly gave way to sadness, and it overtook me. I covered my face and leaned down, the tears streaming quietly behind my closed hands.

I cried.

The reporter blared in the background about the breakup of J-Lo and Marc Anthony and I thought about the irony of my military life: I live a lifestyle that supports and revolves around my husband’s needs, all the while unwittingly developing the very traits that would prepare me for a life without him. Extended separations have required me to be an independent decision-maker and solo parent. Last-minute changes have equipped me with amazing perseverance and flexibility and the ability to eliminate expectations. Moving away from family and friends has made me resourceful and capable of developing deep, meaningful friendships with people who have become a second family. As I contemplated what kind of fate I was tempting by managing to be so strong and independent, my email alert pinged. It was him. I couldn’t open the email fast enough.

The entire message read: “Not a good day for SOF.”

And I breathed. This communication was exactly the kind of understated, brief response I have come to expect from Husband, lately. My emotional deployment rollercoaster has become the yin to his yang – a barely detectable sine wave of predictable, smooth, logical expression. But as I stared at the email, two things struck me.

First, the expression “not a good day” reminded me of the evening he came home to announce he had a “bad day at the office” after losing his canopy mid-flight. There’s something in military lingo about absurdly understated descriptors that tells you how big things really are. I guess it’s like calling an Aircraft Carrier “the boat” or hearing a servicemember describe their actions as “just doing my duty.”

Second, the brevity reminded me of the day Husband called to say “I won’t be home until late. I love you.” As the hours pressed on, the news told me that someone in his squadron had gone into the water, and I knew right away that it wasn’t him. He had communicated that he was not involved.

So whether he intended it or not, this six-word email gave me peace. Logic and training and pre-deployment talks prepared my brain. But the receipt of this six-word email was what my heart really needed to hear in order to start beating again.

This is the blunt pounding wave part of being a military spouse. News of death causes things I’ve put in the back of my mind and heart to become momentarily feasible. Despite what I know is actually true, crushing waves of irrational possibility remind me what Husband is sacrificing. What I’m sacrificing. What my children are sacrificing. The whitewater tumbles me upside down and tosses me to and fro in an indolent tide until I smack the sandy bottom, get my bearings, and manage to come up for a gasp of air. This time, I recovered quickly thanks to a well-timed email.

My husband is in a relatively safe location, and I generally don’t worry about his physical safety. But this grit on my skin … this thin salty haze that seems to have been left behind by my tussle with that wave … I just can’t seem to wash it away. And I have a feeling it’s sticking around for a while.

Goodbye Salute

31 of you are gone. What you do for a living means we likely will never hear your names, see your widows cry, or create college funds in your name for your children. Your work will be glamorized by the media, mourned by strangers, discredited by conspiracy theorists. The price of your extraordinary sacrifice will be on the minds of the American public for at least 48 hours.

But to us, the military families, you are more. You are our friends, neighbors, and classmates. You are our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and aunts and uncles. You are our husbands. Wives. You are our fathers and mothers. We know you.

“Molon Labe.”

The Preschooler Gets It

I knew that it would take my strong-willed five year-old the longest to understand. He knew Daddy was leaving for a long time, but he didn’t truly understand how long that was. Not really. The measurement of time is still shrouded in eerie mystery. My boy sleeps so hard that he wakes up and asks, “is it day or night?”

Can you remember that? Can you remember when hours, days, and months were inconsequential? Because I’ve tried, and I can’t. I’ve clearly been an adult too long.

Now, in the past I’ve mentioned the existence of our well intentioned but psycho-killeresque shrine. This is the one we erected after the visual impact of 360 or so days was just too exhausting to bear. We moved instead to a monthly system of marking time … the symbolic lighting of twelve candles. Everyone in my house loves fire.  Perched on the side of the shrine, symbolizing the triumphant return of our Hero, is a pile of Husband’s valuables not permitted to accompany him on his exotic vacation this year: Navy Wings (he doesn’t need them on his NARMY uniform), a flight suit name patch, the Breitling watch I got him one year, and his wedding ring.

These are pretty neat candles, each one bearing a little silver word placard on the front. Husband bought them for me on my 39th birthday and I never lit them. Of course, the candle we picked for the month of February was “Love.” So on Valentine’s Day we lit the Candle of Luv and The Preschooler asked when Daddy was coming home. I pointed to a candle midway down the row and said matter-of-factly, “here’s where Daddy comes for a visit.” Then I pointed down to the end of the row at the pile of Husband’s familiar things and said plainly, “and here’s where Daddy comes all the way home.”

We had been lighting the candles periodically, but not daily. The Preschooler had finally caught on that we couldn’t light the next one until an entire month had passed. He was slowly understanding what that period of time felt like. I could see he was doing advanced candle trinomials in his head. His eyes fell on each candle one-by-one, and as he looked down the row and paused on each one, together in silence our memories were sparked.

• Halloween. He dressed as a Ninja and got an email account so Daddy could email him.
• Veteran’s Day, and the explanation of the White Table.
• Thanksgiving, when we had our little meal with Nana and watched football rather quietly.
• Christmas: getting a tree, singing at church, sending Daddy’s presents in the mail.
• January, and the impromptu but brave trip to the ER.

And then I watched him turn his gaze to the long stack of candles yet to be lit.  He looked at candles but I looked at St. Patrick’s day, Easter, and his sixth birthday. He saw blue and pink wax and I saw summer come and go. He looked at the silver plates with words he couldn’t read … words like “longevity” and “peace” and I saw the colors change, and his first day of Kindergarten. I watched his eyes fill with water that billowed up and held steady, right at the dam’s edge of his little eyelashes. And my heart broke in two, right there. It was hitting him in waves. He was realizing how long a month was. He was realizing how long a year was. He was realizing what deployment meant. He could see it for the first time.

But then, The Preschooler didn’t respond as I expected. He didn’t scream or bawl. He didn’t say, “but that’s a LONG TIME!” or get angry and punch something. Or jump on something. Or break something. These were the reactions I was betting on. These were the outbursts I was prepared for. Something big, something dramatic, something violent and boy-like. Instead, he was silent and lifeless, his arms dangling and his back slouched. I recognized the absolute resignation and my  heart broke some more. And then right there on the bathroom floor, he put his face in his hands, let his back fall against the cabinet, and slowly slunk down into a ball, collapsing in a heap. He started to sob.

I wondered how he knew that I secretly cried this way when he and his sister weren’t looking.

I didn’t scoop him up. I just got down on the bathroom floor next to him and held him there for a minute. I thought about the night before Husband left, and what I wanted to hear. I thought about what Husband said, and I repeated parts of it in The Preschooler’s ear, trying hard not to show the breaks and cracks in my own voice:

I’m so proud of you. I know you will be strong. The time will pass quickly sometimes and slowly other times, but at the end of the year it will be the best of homecomings. Daddy misses us, too, so much. He thinks of us every day and he will keep thinking of us. He won’t forget you and you won’t forget him. We will talk whenever we can and we will keep telling him what we are doing. We will keep praying for him until he comes home.

It was silent, and I was happy with my response. And then he asked the question. The Question.

Through tears he turned and looked at me: “How do we know Daddy will not get killed?”

My responsive silence was not awe-inspiring. I had applied diversion tactics to questions about the “bad guys” and why Daddy was carrying a gun in his pictures. I had successfully avoided international politics and news shows during the dinner hour. I had even described Daddy’s abode as a “hotel room” or a “camping tent.” But this was a very pointed question. He was asking me to make a promise I could not make. And he was asking the question that had been nagging at me for months. How, indeed.

I had to hug him tight, because I couldn’t look him in the eyes and say it. But for the first time, for him, I believed the answer to the question.

“Well, everybody dies baby. From the day we are born, we are one step closer to the day God calls us to Heaven. Daddy isn’t any more likely to die today than you or me walking down the street. We aren’t in control of our lifetimes and you know what? Wherever we happen to be or whatever we happen to be doing doesn’t change when that day comes. Only God knows. So where Daddy is and what he’s doing doesn’t mean he’s going to get killed or not get killed just like it means nothing for you or me. Daddy is in a safe place, just like you, because it’s where he is supposed to be in that moment. And no matter what happens, Daddy will be taken care of, and you will be taken care of.”

The Preschooler got it. And I got it, too.

We snuggled lots that evening after blowing the candle out, and the two of us stayed awake in the bed long after Sweet Pea fell asleep. It was good to have safety and arms around each other. We were working through it together. He asked the question again several times, and I gave the same response. He wanted to hear the answer again, and I wanted to say it out loud again. The more I said it, the more true it became.

So I guess it took me a while. In fact, it took me as long as it took The Preschooler. But there it is. Finally. Acceptance.

And now, we can move on …