Most people age twenty, aren’t pregnant with their
second child, and watching their husband deploy for the second time in their
past two years of marriage. In fact while the majority of my friends were off
at college, and making facebook posts about the party they had just gone too,
or how they missed their boyfriend, I was mentally preparing for my husbands
second deployment, as he packed his bags, brought home power of attorneys and I
made the ultimate decision of whether or not I was going home to take care of
our son and have our daughter, or stay in San Diego while he was gone. All of
this went on until the day finally arrived, and while most of that day was the
biggest blur of my life,
The car door slammed with a thud, the sound of its
closing jolting me back to reality. I honestly had no clue how exactly I had
gotten back in the car, or back to the car, glancing in the rearview mirror, I
saw my little blonde boy sleeping in his car seat, relieving my worries that I
had forgotten him, as I remembered that one of Brian’s seniors had helped me to
the car after the busses had left. I was numb, so numb, as I watched my
one-year-old sleep. I fidgeted with the keys in my hand, and felt a small smile
coming on when I took a kick to the ribs.
And then reality set in as I let all the tears I had tried to shard to
hold back, or had briskly wiped away in the past hours flood forth. The whole
morning replayed in my mind.
The alarm had gone off at three in the morning, nowhere
near a normal wake up time for me. I tried to ignore it, tried to wish it away.
I had dreaded this alarm for the past week. This alarm held nothing good for
me. I laid in bed as long as I possibly could, until Brian told me I really had
to get out of bed. I dressed quickly and went down stairs to start preparing a
bottle, my peace offering to my 14-month-old son, for waking him up at this
hour. As I did so, I watched as Brian dressed in his Cammies, knowing that this
would be the last time in seven months that I would see him in his uniform, or
see him period. I kicked myself mentally, not wanting him to see me staring,
knowing that I needed to be strong, even if today I felt the weakest I had ever
felt.
We loaded into the car and began the thirty-minute
drive to base; both of us were quiet, as I had a death grip on his hand he
wasn’t using to drive, as words echoed through my mind as I pushed them down
before I said anything that shouldn’t be said. We started a conversation, that
I now cannot remember, though you would think that I would, being that it was
the last time I talked to my husband face to face in six to seven months. As we
reached base, everything became a blur, I shook hands with the people I was
just newly meeting, hugged Brian’s Corporal, and his wife. Sat with other wives
and made small talk when the guys had to go do something, the longest but
shortest hours of my life blended into a blur. And then it was time, I choked
down tears as we hugged, and I watched him say good-bye to our son, who I
feared was a little to accustomed to us dropping daddy off at work so he could
leave for long periods of time. Brian rubbed my belly, as he did so I told the
thoughts in my head to shut up, knowing that once again a deployment hindered
him from seeing the birth of his child. He then hugged me a second time, before
boarding the bus containing the last bit of his battalion deploying, as I stood
with all the other wives to watch the buses leave, we all smiled at the sound
of voices yelling “GET SOME!”
As
the buses faded from sight, most of the wives started to leave, I stood there
for a minute, I must have looked lost standing in the cool sixty degree
weather, as one of Brian’s seniors that I had just met that day came up to me,
and offered to help me to the car. I replied yes, and told him I was parked
near the armory. As he started pushing my stroller, I wrapped my arms around my
barely protruding belly, and followed him to the car, letting my thoughts run
rampart as he lead the way. And that’s when the sound of the car door closing
jostled me from wallowing within myself.
As I sat fiddling with my keys, I knew that I had a
choice to make, before I could even leave the parking space. I needed to decide
if I was going to actually be strong, or fake it to make it through this
deployment. I’d never been on my own before, his last deployment I had been
eighteen and pregnant, I had headed home as fast as I could. Knowing that this
deployment I was going to be on my own, making all the decisions for my son,
gave me a newfound respect for single mothers. And it was in that moment of
deciding that if mothers out there could raise children by themselves, and the
other wives could go through deployments and stay strong, then it was time I
grew up, and quit acting like an overgrown child, and buck up to the job of
taking care of what was needed of me.
As if he knew that I had decided to be strong for
the both of us, my son woke up and smiled at me, I asked him if he was ready to
go home and be mommy’s main man for the next few months, his smile got even
bigger. As we pulled out of the parking lot, knowing that the next time we came
to base, we’d have one more car seat in the back, and we’d be picking Brian up,
knowing that in the next months to follow I would grow up in more ways than I
had ever dreamed of.
