7 days, This is What I am Committed To

It has been 7 days since I have had any communication with my husband.  No calls, no texts, no emails. There is probably another 10 days of this silence left.  All simply due to a training exercise that is taking place out of state. Training them for who knows what will go down in the middle east next.  Training for yet another deployment.  More time away from family.  More time away from reality. More time reminding them of the frailty of life. I wish everyday all this could just come to an end.  I am tired, he is tired and our family is growing weary of all the stress put upon us by The United States Army.

I met Skip and loved him.  I waited for him for 15 long months.  He came home and I committed to him and this life I live with him now.  I agreed to undergo the stress, the heart ache and all the times I would spend alone just so I could have the time we could spend together.  I know someday the deployments, the training and the stress will come to an end. But I also know that until that day the imprint of all these events are going to leave a lasting impact on him, on me and on us together. In many ways, it already has.

I have committed to growing a family with him.  I've done so knowing that I will be taking on most of the work for the first years as the Army doesn't give him enough time now.  I am growing a family with with in anticipation of possibly having a baby with him out of the country some day and missing some of the most important moments of it's life.  He has promised me that I will never have to work because he knows how much I am needed at home to make sure our home is a functioning place.  Place for our family to grow up healthy. While all that is so very hard now, I know that the sacrifice I make, the pain I feel when I need him more and loneliness of parenting without him is not going to last much longer.  The Army doesn't have him forever.  Every hour they take know is worth the hours of freedom that is coming with his retirement.  It's worth the stability he is giving our family.

I am committed to him for life, knowing that someday I will spend at least 15 years of that without him. I know that someday all I will have are the kids we will raise together because he will be gone long before me. Every nite that he is gone and the last bath has been given, after the stories have been read and the kids are sleeping I sit alone and wonder if the quiet I sit with is what it will be like.  Will I sit and remember all the nites he was gone and feel the same I feel now without him? Will the silence be worse with all the kids grown and possibly gone? Will they remember to check on me and make sure I am not sad the same way Aiden asks me if I am ok now? If I am as lucky as Skip's mom, I will get another 30 years to enjoy with him. Even knowing that, I don't think its enough.

There will never be enough time to make up for all our lost time now. All the lost holidays, birthdays, season changes and special life events.  We can't turn anything back and try for it again.  We can't get back our lost hours when he gets called in.  But we can stay committed thru all of it.  We can promise to never leave during our worst moments when life makes us crack.  Promise to not quit when we feel like the future is not going to be as we hoped. We won't give up when the path is just too much to take.

10 more days before a phone call. 10 more lonely nites of thinking about what life would be like without him. Then all I can do is hope for a beautiful 90 days before I have to endure the next deployment.  Commitment, that's how you get it done.