My Veteran

In honor of Veteran's Day, I am republishing a piece I wrote as a contest submission after my husband, known to most of you as the pony-tailed proprietor of the Aqualand Ale House, returned from his first overseas tour. He went on to tour one more time, in part to set funds aside towards the purchase of our dream. This Veteran's Day week, as always, he is my hero...I love you sweetheart... War By Susie Wilsie-Govier I once heard that a new puppy would sleep better if you give her something with your scent to snuggle up in. There is safety for in the smell of someone close, someone loved. Reaching into his suitcase, I pull out a dirty t-shirt. He hadn’t been home since June but I had an opportunity to say one more goodbye in early August before he left the country and me, for a year. When asked to go, he wanted to know how I felt about it, but I knew I really couldn’t stop him. He was a career military man. Going was what he was trained to do. As his love, best friend and wife, I always knew that I had not married a tame boy. As I sat on our bed that first night home, the first night of the goodby-ing day, I cried into the dirty t-shirt that represented our connection- our love. I could sniff him with me, but he wasn’t; not even close. On a plane to a distant land, full of excitement, fear and grief, I knew he reveled in the gift of resurrection. In helping secure our national freedom, he was finding his own as well. After years spent working for the office military machine he was larger than life once again- a soldier. I could almost imagine his stretching. I could almost smile. I knew he needed this, but I mourned for the loss of him. I knew that now, faced with such a long separation I would do what I had to do just like I always had. My father had taught me to be strong and it was now up to me to show my sons how to do it. Even with this understanding, I also knew doing this would take much from me. When my husband was deployed, I didn’t like to be touched. I was very brittle at times, very close to crumbling at every hug. The going this time was going to be tough and I was impatient with others, wanting them to let me to get on with it, thinking, “let’s just get this over with already.” In those last few days with my husband, I was not very kind to him. As we wandered around sporting goods stores searching for performance underwear, I was frustrated. He couldn’t decide what he would really need for sure, so was reluctant to purchase. I wanted him to just take one of everything, as if it was one way I could show him I cared. His choice to leave the stores without purchase made me irrationally angry. As he spent his goodbye moments with his sons, I watched, and moved them towards each other as much as possible. I wanted them all to know that should the worst happen, there would be no years of words laying there as “should have saids” for my sons to feel as wounds that would change them irreparably. Likewise, I wanted his last memories of his sons to be those of a man proud of the men he had raised, confident that they knew he expected them to carry my burdens for him while he could not. As for me, I wanted none of him and yet I wanted all of him. This man who needed to leave was leaving me and it did not feel good. This man who was going to war was severing himself from the daily rituals of our love; rituals that normally got us both through every stressful and tiring day. How would I replace that? The only way I knew how was to shut each open door. Every caress in those last few days together was at once life giving and a wounding scratch, scrape, puncture or poke in the eye. The last look I saw in his eyes was that of a little boy, sad to be separating, but excited for adventure. I knew he was hurting too, but as the one getting left behind I felt my pain was worse because I wasn’t heading somewhere. There was no adventure waiting for me except that of being alone. With both boys soon headed off to college, I would be experiencing our first year of empty nesting all by myself. At First, I tried to make each day a treat. But one can only eat perfectly seasoned grilled, medium-rare steaks and steamed asparagus in the recliner while watching re-runs of “Sex In The City” (a show he hated) so many nights in a row before the novelty wears off and the jeans get too tight. Often I went to see a massage therapist, for I was holding myself too tightly; my body tensing constantly in trying to shelter me from the wounding that I felt inside. Communication was hard. He was in an area without a base, so there would be no skyping, very sketchy phone calling and infrequent mail. I was truly on my own clutching my power of attorney form and prepared will. Beyond lonely, I bought a new puppy and named her Gracie. Curling in my lap every night, I dozed in the chair with her, since a king sized bed seemed a mockery. Eventually, when I did finally muster the courage to climb into bed, the T.V. stayed on all night, alternately comforting me with its chatter and waking me when I had finally dozed off. Door locking became an obsessive compulsive exercise. Kitchen chairs braced every knob of every already locked door; my homespun version of a security system. Noises that were unfamiliar became fictional scenes of horror almost every day and every night. I traveled for work, often gone long hours at a time. On coming home, my walking through every room and looking under every bed bothered me, but seemed somehow important, logical and wise. When you are all alone, you can lie to yourself quite effectively. If I wasn’t busy spoiling my irrational fears, I was bragging on myself, to myself, about how smart I was- how mature. I mentally wandered, imagining the scene when Oprah called asking me to speak on behalf of soldier’s wives everywhere. Of course she teared up on the phone as she begged me to come on her show to tell my story. Even in my day dreams, I realized my story wasn’t tragic enough when I rehearsed the telling in my mind. It would need to grow in order to make my appearance the most moving show of the year. He would need to die a heroes death, yes, that would be a sure fire (oh my...unfortunate choice of fantasy words) way to get that call. Snapping out of my fantasy, appalled, I would try and stop thinking. But in the night, when there was no one else around, I would truly wonder what would become of me if the unthinkable were to happen. Would I continue to live in this house, filled with so many memories? Would I move back up north to the lonely woods where I grew up? What would I do with his clothes, his things? Would I get a flag at the service? Could I stand through a 21 gun salute? Or would Taps bring me to my knees? How would I use the life insurance money? Would I buy a hot tub like we had always talked about doing- or would I even want one if I would be sitting under the stars alone? How long would I mourn- or would I have sort of pre-mourned for the number of months he had already been gone? Would I ever re-marry? If so, who would I want my next husband to be- like him or the opposite so it wouldn’t remind me; so it would hurt a little less? Would I even be able to go on without him? Would I ever laugh or ever have fun again? When this train of thought got out of control, I tried to escape myself, gathering friends, kids and projects like water to a thirsty soul. My oasis became busyness, never stopping until I was beyond dead on my feet. If I worried about being over committed, that worrying only gave me less time to think about more dangerous things. I obsessively watched Fox News since they covered the war most fully. Fearing every mention of casualties, I still needed to hear every word of every broadcast just the same. I was hungry for “fair and balanced” mentions of death, peppered between stories of movie stars and weather. If those deaths were not in Paktika Provence, Afghanistan, I could breathe a little easier for a time. Veteran’s Day took me by surprise- not ready for it, I cried all day. Everywhere I looked there were old men saluting something, uniforms on T.V. and marching bands moving down to city parks to fire blanks in tribute to the Veterans- the symbols of pride, death and dying for a cause. As well meaning people thanked me for my service, I could only think of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier- where the T.V. showed the president placing a wreath. Thinking what this tribute meant to some guy’s wife, lover or mother. Those left behind must surely and most strongly remember every soldier; especially the lost ones known for being unknown. Someone had lost them- and they didn’t know how, and that someone forever mourns. Traditional holidays came on as battles to be waged, almost laughable in their effort to drag me down farther. These were the times when I could shine, pulling it all together for everyone else so that I could quickly cross the day off the list- one Thanksgiving, one Christmas, one Valentine’s Day down. I was the soldier at these times too, doing all the right things and keeping it all as “the same” as possible for my boys and everyone else. I will always remember the true friend who, on one of these occasions took position at my side, shoulder to shoulder with me and stated, “Man, this Stinks!” I didn’t need say it, she said it for me. A year is a long time to be apart. Memories are made that cannot be shared and cannot be stopped. You cannot sit still that long, you cannot just wait, and so you don’t. You find hobbies, try new foods, make new friends and you change. You become someone they don’t know and at the end, when they come home, you cannot help but be a stranger. As our year apart came to an end, I stood with the other families waiting to welcome their soldier home. I could see him. He was leaner, tougher and wind burned. His scowl carved a little deeper in his brow and his hair greyer than I remembered. But he was large. I could see his experiences had broadened him and given him the new strength born of adversity. He later described his habit of sleeping on top of the bedding in his clothes always on the alert. I knew in some way that this habit was his body in tune with mine for no real rest had been allowed for either of us this year. Taking him home, we lay down on the bed together for the first time. Now that it was all over we were both desperate for some sleep, but I needed him badly, not even so much physically as just to get the smell of him again, the feel of his skin next to mine. In the end we lay together just looking at each other for the first time in months and talked- talked and talked. As he eventually put his arms around me and encouraged me to sleep- pulling me to spoon against him, I knew everything was okay. We slept truly, deeply, for the first time since those long months apart had begun. Our year apart had changed us both forever. But now that I had breathed him in again, I recognized what was still the same- WE were.