“So, who’s *your* support network?” I was talking to another military spouse in church and after explaining the ways I had meddled got involved with the various services during this deployment to support other spouses, this wasn’t the question I was expecting. At this stage in my life, I enjoy being the nosy overbearing support for other spouse’s. I’ve spent more than my share of time being the one supported over the years. I try to be the one to organize the events, to contact the lady on the message board who feels alone, to bring a meal or a babysitter or an ear to someone who’s struggling. I like ensuring that someone is getting their snow cleared or that there’s a regular coffee time for others to make new friends. These things make my heart happy. They are why I run a Spouse’s Night Out group, why I drive onto base a couple times a week from my house 20 minutes away. For the most part, they are why I run this blog. “Who’s YOUR support network?” Well, I don’t really need one, do I? This is our 4th deployment. I mean, if there was an emergency I’m pretty loud empowered. If I thought about it I know who I could call if I needed to. I can make Christmas happen, I can plan an HLTA, I can attend school meetings and work a Power of Attorney and sell a house. I know my acronyms and I can yell at deal with Brookfield. I know when it’s free to send packages and I know…
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…
So this week, I was inspired. Having read before about Sarah Smiley’s book “Dinner with the Smileys“, I was intrigued about the idea of inviting community members to join us for dinner or adventure during my husband’s current deployment. Our last posting and the deployments we endured at it were made bearable by the people we knew. The community that supported us. And while there are people here who have welcomed us so wonderfully, it is a much quieter place. Our home is not the open door of activity it had been when we were living in our old community. But who’s fault was that? Dh has big shoes to fill and we would never replace him. He couldn’t be replaced. He is their dad, invincible and bigger than life in their eyes. As it should be. He adores them and they adore him. Nothing will ever change that. But there is a chance here to fill his temporary absence in my kid’s lives with the wisdom, support and encouragement of their community. So the kids and I brainstormed. We had an opportunity here to learn about our community and grow in our relationships in it. There was a chance to learn, about occupations, about people, about supporting each other and making connections. And since even here on this blog I’ve written about filling those empty chairs with the people around you looking to fill one, it was time to step up. With dad away, we have many months of time that we could be intentional about inviting people from our commmunity to join us. Who would we start with? So we made…
*Disclaimer: the dates of these events and information of this post, including the date of publication, has been changed or delayed for security purposes* Today I felt the change in my face when you told me. We were at the gym and you grabbed me on a quick second, I know you’d been waiting all day and this was the first time I had seen you since the morning. You said ‘I’m going‘ and my eyes blinked and hardened. I swallowed and I know my entire expression changed. It changed to be expressionless, that was the entire design and my superpower. The ability to remove expression and emotion and take in what I needed to hear without drama or fear. I have a lot of practice with it. * Today as I walked out of my evening class my phone confirmed what I already knew. We were going down this road for the 4th time. I stared at it a while. Someone behind me asked where you were. They joked with me about how eager you were to get out and do your job. I smiled and agreed that it was who you were, I joked that you were pretty lucky that I loved you enough to put up with it. I was laughing when I got in the car. When I pulled out of the parking lot I was already crying. But only until I pulled onto our street so the kids wouldn’t see. * Today you prepared your uniform for the changes you would need while you are gone. We went for coffee and I made you a list of what I need done before you left. It’s all business of home improvements, Powers of Attorney and snow shovels. This…
Dear America, Do nations read letters from nobodies? Probably not. But there’s something that today, I wanted you to know. I am proud to call myself a Canadian. I wouldn’t trade my country for anything. I am not American. But I hurt with you anyways. For over a decade. Many years ago, I was a newlywed. Living my life in Northern Alberta until one day after the long bus ride to the depot and walk home after a 9 hour shift at the shelter downtown, I collapsed asleep on my bed just after 8a.m. without changing. And that’s how September 11th, 2001 found me, after a phone call woke me up less than an hour later, watching the horror of the 2nd tower get hit while still in my nursing scrubs, sitting in my living room on a pile of laundry. And even though I am not American, not only could I not understand the unspeakableness of what the news was showing me, I acutely aware that this day was going to somehow change my life, here, completely. I couldn’t reach DH, I didn’t even try. He was in the bush training with a military competition team he was a part of. I wondered if he knew, if he was watching. Would he come home at all? Would I even see him before he had to go? Was there anything we could do? Had this been a third world country that was the victim, I have no doubt our Canadian Forces would have mobilized a disaster assistance team to be there as we have done for dozens of countries in need before and since then. But instead this was arguably the most powerful country in the world we were…
12 years ago, the phone call came after I had gone to sleep for the night. I didn’t watch much news, with Dh deployed I had been overwhelmed with the reports that had come from the first combat deployment since Korea. And so I’d blocked it out, avoiding the reality of it all. My friend just wanted to know if Dh was OK. She had assumed I had heard, but I hadn’t. She felt terrible, it wasn’t her fault. So I turned on the TV and stared as the talking head told me there were reports of Canadian casualties. Almost 5 months pregnant, I had no friends or family in the area, so desperate as I was I called the Regiment. I was 21 and new to everything, I didn’t know how it was supposed to work. This was new ground. War casualties. It’s like the concept caught us off guard. The family support officer took the phone and and all he could say was ‘We can confirm there are casualties but we can’t confirm who they are, because the families haven’t been notified yet.’ They brought me to the Regiment to wait for a bit, I apparently sounded a little hysterical. I’m not proud of how badly I handled the news. I came home to my empty house in the middle of the night, all I could do was wait to see if my doorbell would ring. When morning came and it hadn’t, I received a phone call confirming that Dh was OK. What I felt then was almost harder than what I had experienced the entire sleepless night. It was the guilt that follows that moment…
I write most of my blogs in my head while running. I need to focus off of the screaming lungs and the aching calves. So I write in my head. Usually, what I write is never published. A lot of the time, I just disappear into old memories or stories that never come out. This week, it seemed to be the same memory, over and over. It was of a funeral. One I was attending, not really knowing if I should, for a 25 year old soldier who had been serving with Dh. He had been my husband’s comrade, killed by an IED days before they were all coming home. I felt like I had no business being at that funeral, like I was intruding on their pain, but there I was with 2 other military wives, sitting in the back. And soldiers brought in the casket, draped in the flag. And I had it all together. Even through the bagpipes, the casket, the ceremony. I may have mentioned I am not a crier? I am not. And I wasn’t. Until I saw him. Every soldier who is killed overseas has an escort home. A comrade who will travel with him and stay with his fallen friend until he is buried. Everyone else taking part in the funeral is wearing their best. Shined, polished, looking strong and formal to lay one of their own to rest. From the pallbearers to the guests, every military member is in full dress uniform. Except for the escort. He’s exhausted, you can tell just by looking at him. His face is pale and his eyes are red. His last few days have been made up of sitting next to grieving family, helping with funeral arrangements and making sure…
A friend posted something on facebook this week calling out a pop-celebrity for her lack of positive influence in the lives of young girls. When I agreed, he encouraged me to dedicate much blog space to calling her out too. But, as I stated before, I don’t write to argue or call down others, and I only tell my own stories. But that doesn’t mean I can’t point out something different, but the same. Which brings me to the story I’ve promised myself I would write for almost 2 months now but couldn’t bring myself to type. About the Loops for Troops Run in Calgary on Father’s Day. And the story starts at a weird beginning, in 2007 when I was 5 months pregnant and Dh was heading out on deployment again. Knowing that Dh has a strong faith, as he was preparing to leave on his last tour his OC asked him if he would take on a very different job than that normally required of an armoured crewman. They would be spending this tour living away from the main base outside the wire and because of this, there would be no padre serving alongside them. His OC wanted to know if Dh would be willing to stand in and lead a memorial service if, heaven forbid, one became necessary during the tour. Dh agreed. This was his 3rd time to Afghanistan and he wasn’t going to pretend the reality wasn’t there. He spent some time talking with our Pastor before he left and tried to prepare as best he could while praying it would not be needed. But less than a month into the deployment, it was. Cpl. Nathan Hornburg…
This week is my 10 year anniversary. And, not suprisingly, my dh is where he usually is during ‘major’ life events… off saving the world somewhere while I stay home and look after the kids. He was a little upset to miss it. I reminded him he wasen’t home for our first anniversary, or most of the anniversaries in between, and so why ruin the whole trend we have going? It’s just a day. And him not being home doesn’t make us less married. In fact, it makes it the perfect anniversary. Because, in fact, if he were home, I would have EXPECTATIONS. And, invariably, those expectations would not be reached. There would be disapointment. I would be thinking “but it wasen’t as perfect as I pictured.” When a husband deploys what you have, in essence, is the perfect husband for however long he is gone. Because really, how can you fault him for anything while he’s away? He doesn’t leave the toilet seat up, mess up the kitchen, hog the bathroom or fill the laundry room with his crap and make it impossible to do anyone elses laundry but his own. He’s off being all heroic. And your memories of him soon become perfect memories of a perfect life together. It’s total fiction, but it’s wonderful. So while he’s away this anniversary, I will remember those perfect moments and how he’s the perfect husband while I have the chance. Before he get’s home and my front room looks like the army came and threw up in it…
