Day 366

          So . . . here it is. After months of looming, the day is finally here. His last day at home before leaving for Iraq, AGAIN. I try not to cry when I ask my principal if I can leave a few minutes early at the end of the day. I decide that supportive smiles are good, but not sure they are worth the pitying looks from my acquaintances who are at varying levels of understanding about what I am about to go through and really have been going through for months. We live near a military base; people, for the most part, get it, but unless you have gone through it and sometimes even unless you've gone through it more than once, the nuances of the challenges of this military life escape even the most sympathetic friend. By the end of the school day, I teach high school, I am ready to race home and take off my heels and see Chad, but there is an aura surrounding our exchanges. So many words hang in the air, unsaid but felt, back and forth. He wants to tell me so many things, but his mouth can't seem to juggle the marble ideas in his head and spit them out. Instead he grasps my fingertips with my arms wrapped around the baby and whispers, "I love you." And takes her, wanting his last few minutes with her too. By the time he sees her again, she will be crawling, maybe even walking. Today she smiles and is working up to giggling, but is still very much a newborn. When he comes home, she will have celebrated her first birthday and be several months closer to the next one. I watch him feed and snuggle her. Her whole faces explodes into a Cheshire grin when he smiles at her. I am worried that his leaving will subconsciously make her feel abandoned by men or sad even though as an adult, she will never remember this year without her daddy. I will have each day etched across my heart.


He wants to eat at his favorite sushi place. I think raw fish should still be swimming in someone's tank, but I concede. He is leaving his home and heading to a place he affectionately (read sarcasm) calls "the armpit of the world" or "prison" depending on his mood. I will be lonely and sad, and probably sleepless, but I can eat at my favorite place whenever I want, so I acquiesce. We have sushi and spend some time on the couch after dinner watching TV, because even though, in my head, I have plenty of emotional time bombs to drop and make this evening special, electric, etc. I don't really know what to say. If we haven't loved each other enough all year long, the next ten minutes or just the right phrase, won't fix it. We almost say nothing as we start to discuss the most ridiculous news headlines of recent days. The laughter pulls us together. We laugh and want to fall asleep, but he has to go inspect barracks, so we kiss goodnight. His goodbye is only for a few hours yet, but the word tastes bitter on my tongue. I fall asleep and wait to wake up at four to say good-bye. The dreams are frantic and jumbled images, some with him and some where he is already gone. At some point I reach across and he is there and I am tempted to stay awake just to memorize the safe warmness of him, but drowsiness wins and I crash back into slumber.

He wakes just before four and I get up to say goodbye. Some wives will take the morning and go to sit in the gym bleachers, hear all the speeches, etc. but I have to get to work and can't see waking the baby this early will help her stay in this new routine we're trying to develop, so we decided that good-bye is the same whether we say it now or in two hours. Besides I don't have to have a brave face for anyone at home. I cry ugly sobs when the minute comes. I am really trying here, but you can't capture the horrible lead weight in my chest feeling with words. I tell him to come home and be safe. And he is gone. I stumble around the house picking up cast off items that didn't make the final duffel bag. I finally drop back into bed for an hour or so before my first day as a single mom commences.