This week, Dh gets a new medal. It’s one every soldier gets, just for showing up for 12 years. Dh has 15.5 years in, but I just assumed it was like high school, it just takes some people a little longer to get there. Okay, no it’s actually just the army who occasionally forgets about things. Especially if no one reminds them…. but it’s more fun to explain it the other way. Now, if I was to give you a detailed list of the people who care about Dh’s medals, it would look like this: 1. Me. …. I know. It’s extensive. The truth is, Dh doesn’t much concern himself with what medals he has. It doesn’t bother him that with 4 deployments, he has a total of 2 medals on his chest. It doesn’t bother him that he’s less than 2 weeks from that 2nd bar on his Afghanistan medal, so he will forever look like he’s done less time there than he has. Or that he’s been home months from his 4th deployment and isn’t holding his breath that he’ll see that medal anytime soon. And when he stands on Remembrance Day next to a soldier who commands all the civilian attention due to a rack of medals that actually points to much less experience than Dh has, instead of bitter he’s mostly just happy he’s deflected any attention. In fact, he completely laughed it off when on his 3rd deployment to Afghanistan they gave him a camera to take pictures of the medals ceremony, because he already had the medal and they had…
So, your spouse is in the Canadian military? Maybe you are a new couple, or maybe your spouse just enlisted. Either way, I get a LOT of messages from you wondering about practical advice on where to start. I have virtually none. I dont know who gave you the impression I know what I’m doing, but they were sadly mistaken. I’m winging it like everyone else. However, I will give you what I’ve got. It’s been 15 years, 3 kids 3 houses and 4 deployments, and I’ve learned far less than I should have by now, but maybe enough to get you started in the right-ish direction. Here we go. 1. It’s all in the name. And your name needs to be on EVERYTHING. Bank accounts. Cable bill. Cell phone. SunLife. Everything. Look at a monthly bank statement and all those bills that are paid? Make sure your name is on the account. Because if your spouse is away, he or she may be impossible to contact and those companies will NOT talk to you if there’s a problem. Being unable to communicate with his Visa company could mean a damaged credit rating on his return, and if you can’t speak to SunLife regarding her account, you may not be able to seek any reimbursements for the extent of their absence. 2. Power of Attorney If you are in a committed relationship (marriage, common law, etc), that piece of paper is vital. It’s the difference between you being able to relocate, make bank changes, etc or being stuck without a means to change mortgage or sell the house. I have used Power of Attorney to list and sell a house, secure…
So I spent time I didn’t have today watching sappy reunion videos on YouTube. I got linked to one on facebook and that led to another of course and like some kind of sick addiction, I kept clicking those buttons like somehow I had both the time and the hydration to spare. But as I sat afterwards, I thought back to the conversation I have had with many people about Internet reality. Have you seen the website It’s Like They Know Us? If you haven’t, go there now.It will open a new window, go ahead. Hilarious, right? Because while having a baby is beautiful and wonderful in many senses, it is also horrible, messy and sometimes terribly, terribly painful. So is everything in life. Everything. And so the reason we lash out at things like unrealistic photos of women in white pants on their periods playing on beige carpeting with perfectly clean toddlers is that it hide the messy. Not just the literal mess, because holy crap this is what my son looked like the last time we were in public. But perfect Internet photos also hide the other mess. The real mess. Stock mom and newborn photos hide what 72 hours of labour, more stitches in places you cant see that anyone should have, a terrified husband and a baby in the NICU when you haven’t even had time to sleep. Ripping your stitches walking to the incubator at 2 am and hiding your exhausted tears in the breast pump room so the nurses won’t see because you’re afraid they’ll think you can’t cut it. And stock couple photos hide the 8am screaming matches, dirty looks and those times when you were…
