Day 79: Thanks CNN

This morning I woke up and started the coffee pot, grabbed the baby for breakfast and didn't check email or Facebook until we'd been up an hour. I had message on Facebook from my MIL asking if Chad was OK. Apparently she was watching the news, and CNN was reporting the following:

Baghdad (CNN) -- Five U.S. servicemembers were killed Monday in central Iraq, the U.S. military said in a written statement.

The deaths are the single largest loss of life among U.S. troops in Iraq since 2009, and they come as Iraq debates whether to request U.S. troops stay beyond a January 1, 2012, deadline that requires 46,000 American forces out of the country.

The U.S. military did not say how or where the five died.

But two Iraqi security officials told CNN Monday that the servicemembers were killed during an early morning mortar attack at a U.S. military base in southeastern Baghdad. You can read the rest by clicking on the link - CNN story.

My heart immediately sank. I know that my husband is near that area, depending on how accurate they are being with location. Although I am not exactly sure where because all the maps of bases and posts that used to be available online have been removed (for obvious reasons). I also know they've been dealing with increased mortars and IEDs.

THIS IS WHY I DON'T WATCH THE NEWS!!! I am not usually one to freak out, but this really has me thrown for a loop. I haven't heard from him today and the news isn't releasing any new information about where or which troops were killed until the families are notified. He called his son yesterday for his birthday and had a terrible connection, I'm told, but other than that I didn't hear from him since lunchtime on Saturday.

I am pinning my hopes on the fact that I am not hard to find, and if they were trying to notify me, I think they would have been here already. But I can't get the sick feeling out of my stomach. In a few hours, I may have an email from my husband and feel very silly for getting so upset, but right now, I hate to admit it, but I am terrified. I hope to feel very ridiculous.

In an effort to find out what is happening, I contacted our FRG leader (family readiness group) to ask what she had heard. She said she hadn't heard anything, which is kind of good news, but would call our Rear D (rear detachment are the troops who maintain operations back home, keep open communications between spouses and troops, etc.) I spent the next three hours checking my email every five seconds. She answered me very quickly about making the call and then nothing. I really got worried then. She might not email me back if it was our troops and/or my husband because they will only notify people in person.

I literally started paying attention to cars outside the house, left my computer open so I could see the second I had an email. Nothing for hours. I was drying my hair watching Lil Bit play in her exer-saucer and my emotions got the better of me. I couldn't imagine her facing the rest of her life without her dad. I couldn't imagine trying to be a mom in the midst of grieving. In my head, I am picturing the complete meltdown I would face and then having to be strong for her.

It was a LONG four hours. I finally saw my husband's roommate online on FB chat. I quickly asked him if they were OK. He answered that they were fine, a little irritated that their internet was down, but otherwise, just fine. I was very relieved. I let my family and friends know that he was OK, but just as quickly realized that five wives were still getting the devastating news that their husbands weren't coming home and five more that their spouses were injured.

My FRG leader still hasn't emailed back which makes me think it might have been some of our group, if not my husband's troop. I spent four hours imagining the worst, which is WHY I DON'T WATCH THE NEWS!!! I still had hope that it wasn't my soldier so I don't exactly know how it would feel, but a glimpse into that horror was more than I ever want to experience again!

My heart aches for those spouses and families. I don't know how you would deal with such earth shattering grief. All I can do is pray for them and for safety for the rest of our forces as the insurgents try to increase the violence to take credit for driving American forces out of the country. My countdown to welcoming him home is more real to me than ever. I am still hopeful that he will be home earlier than a year. In fact, I think he is supposed to be home a week earlier than he left last year, but I am not changing my count. I am counting down until he is home. When he gets on a plane, I will update to one day left. But I refuse to chance jinxing anything. 

Day 140: Surprise

If you are a faithful reader or close friend, you know this story. Even if you do, I like revisiting it from time to time, maybe you will too.

Five years ago today, I had had an awful day. My principal had been on my case for teaching the racy novel Dead Poets' Society. It is a long story, but suffice it to say it had been a stupid argument from a small minded man and I was struggling with tears as some friends of mine and I went out to lunch.

Every Thursday, we went out to eat instead of bringing our lunches. It was a nice tradition. I spent most of the meal upset. As we pulled into the parking lot, Kim said, "I'm sure your day will get better." I answered something like, "only if you can give me the winning lottery numbers." Everyone laughed and we went back to work. I did notice a few strange nudges and glances, but it didn't compute, so I ignored it.

I supervised detention that afternoon for a few extra bucks and headed home on a dreary spring day. I got about a mile from school when I noticed the sheriff's car behind me flashing its lights and siren. I pulled over to let him pass, and he stopped behind me. I was shaken and upset. Was I speeding? if I had been it was like 2-3 mph. I had been wearing my seatbelt. My tags were all current. I couldn't imagine why I had been pulled over, by the sheriff no less.

He walked up to the car slowly. I rolled my window down.

"Ma'am, we've had several reports about some strange activity in the area involving a green car like yours." I immediately knew he had to be color blind. The only person who thought my silvery purple car was green was Chad. I restrained myself from telling him the "my boyfriend is color blind too" story.

"But my car is actually purple." He ignored me. "But you know me, I taught Louie in class. I . . . " He cut me off. "You are still going to have to get out of the car, Ma'am." My eyes got wide, get out? They only make criminals and drug dealers get out?!

He walked behind me, talking into the radio on his shoulder, comparing my license with my plates. The imposing, stern sheriff asked me to stand facing the trunk of my car and place my hands on the trunk. Now I was scared. I noticed buses full of children passing me on the road and wondered if I would be fired for getting arrested. Then I noticed a man with a TV camera running across the road to get a shot of the action.

"Great, now I am going to be on COPS," I sighed mentally. I tried to let the wind blow my hair over my face so the footage would be hard to identify, but the sheriff yelled at me to face front. I heard his car door open and the radio playing. Of course it was playing Rascal Flatts "Bless the Broken Road" which is our song. My eyes felt prickly and I could feel tears starting to gather. I closed my eyes and willed myself not to start sobbing on camera.

I waited for the sheriff to warn me that I was about to be frisked when I felt a touch on my elbow. I turned around to find my boyfriend, Chad, standing there in his uniform home early from Iraq. I kissed him and hugged him, thinking he was going to get it once we were alone, that Poop ~ scaring me like that!

Then he started talking, like a speech. I was really confused. "It has been a long, bumpy, broken road for us to get here hasn't it?" What was he talking about? "But I'd take as many broken roads, as many miles as I had to, if I knew I had to do that to get to you." I was so emotional that he was here, in front of me, home, that I really still didn't understand what was happening.

Then the chorus of the song began to swell and Chad dropped to one knee pulling a box from his pocket. All of a sudden I got it, but then was kicking myself for not paying attention.

 "Jennifer, would you do me the honor of being my wife?" I nodded and think I mumbled yes. He slid this beautiful ring on my finger and kissed me. Then as we turned to face the crowd of people I hadn't noticed behind us, Chad pumped his arms in the air, "Woo!"

That story ran on the front page of the local newspaper the next day and the story aired the next day (Friday) on the local NBC station. By Saturday, we were getting calls from people we knew that it was playing on local NBC affiliates in other states. Sunday afternoon, his sister called us that she'd been scrolling through the channels and saw the story running on MSNBC. The story aired every hour for the entire day on national news.

It was an amazing whirlwind of R&R. We had an engagement party that evening and later that weekend for out of town family. We celebrated and enjoyed our celebrity. They came back and filmed our wedding for an update in 2006 for the end of the year story. And aired it again on our anniversary fall 2010, which happens to be Veteran's Day (not a coincidence). They reviewed the proposal and did an update which was a nice way to celebrate our anniversary this year with him gone. Wand TV - if you use the video search bar and search soldier proposal, the video is archived there.

It was a single word, "Yes" that changed my life, led me to leave a house, a tenured teaching position and my home state to follow this soldier first to Tennessee and then Texas and into an uncertain future, but full of love despite the challenges life and the ARMY throw our way.

Like I said that day, "I couldn't have pictured it [any of it] any better."

Day 346: Autumn Promises

A former student of mine said she read this today and it was something special to her. It is a good reminder to me as well, that I need to take risks too. Life get shorter and shorter everyday. Hope you enjoy!

Autumn Promises
A crisp apple wind
causes rust colored leaves to stutter step
down graying blacktop
and across deep green lawns.
The September air is warm in the bright afternoon sun,
but betrayed by the undercurrent of autumn
trailing the heat,
and for a moment
I can almost feel an old flannel shirt
and hear the high school band over the cheers at the football game.
I feel myself tumbling
like the leaves
back to those minutes
where everything was as fresh and new
as I was,
new folders and notebooks
waiting for me to write in them,
a new year of promises
daring to be kept,
where life was something waiting for me
instead of a pathway of regret
trailing behind me.
I also remember
being afraid
of what life would bring after the safe cocoon of high school,
so I found cocoon,
after cocoon,
to encase myself,
as if I could protect myself from risk,
from failure
finding hollow victories in being just good enough
to get by
without putting too much of myself on the limb,
but realizing now that the regrets that trail me
are more the regrets of what I didn't do,
the risks I wouldn't take,
the life I was afraid to lead.
I pull the sharp, cool air into me
with all of its hope
daring to believe,
that I can now write the pages of my future,
breaking out of my safety chrysalis
and emerge the butterfly I was always supposed to be,
casting off the past,
its hurts and failures,
willing to risk what I am afraid to lose,
in the hopes that next fall
I will again be that girl with the cotton candy dreams
and tomorrows lining up before her
breathless for each challenge and
grateful for the wonder of each day
in the crisp apple wind.

359: No news is good news?

Tonight's story isn't mine. This morning I walked past a friend of mine. Her porcelain face seemed tense and harried. She told me she had a rough weekend. She sat with me in my classroom in the relative peace of the hallway before the first bell. She has recently adopted a dog with some bizarre health problems, so I anticipated hearing about her Wilma antics, but when she asked me if I had seen the news, I knew it had to have been war related.

Her husband deployed late June to Afghanistan. Teary eyed she told me that her husband's helicopter had been shot down Friday during Ramadan's Night of Power. 50 or so insurgents had swarmed the base and attacked his helicopter. His Apache took 15 bullets. She said it was a miracle that none of the crew were wounded or killed. She said it was the only such incident since the beginning of the war where there were any survivors. Some of you, not being military spouses or mothers, may not understand why she spent the entire weekend sobbing after she knew he was fine or why it was all I could do not to cry as we talked this morning, but it goes back to what I said yesterday about the illusions of safety and control we have even when we know better. 

Even we, in the thick of the home front, lose sight of reality. As long as the emails and phone calls keep coming, we focus on the missing them, the missed date nights and holiday dinners. We focus on how the stupid generic trash bags he bought before he left tore and spilled brown sludge all over the kitchen floor. We focus on the things we'll do when he gets home. We ignore the danger and pretend that those dark government cars only come to someone else's home. I have been surrounded by this for a few years now. I have watched a girl literally shatter as her mom said those dreaded words, "Daddy isn't coming home." I didn't even know her, but helped pick her up and held her while we got her off the phone and to the counselor's office. But even then, I tell myself, that it can't happen to us.

My friend got a big dose of reality this weekend and it made us both realize that no matter how the press paint it, these are war zones and people are killed, people loved just as much as my guy is. Right now, I am trying my best to finish writing for today and get to bed, Chad's shirt laying beside me, the dirty shirt he wore all day one day last week and covered in cologne before finally taking a shower and changing.
Just one deep breath and the tears come. I decide to put the shirt in a plastic ziploc bag so it will smell longer, never knowing when or if I will ever get a chance to ask him to dirty a new one and try to tell myself that 36 hours without an email doesn't mean anything. It usually doesn't, but today I needed to hear that he is ok, even though what happened was in another country because while I tell myself no news is good news. They call or visit when the bad news comes. I need that touchstone, that momentary, "you're ok today" so I can rest easy and not worry. The worrying would kill me if I let it. Which is why we all do it, we all pretend, until we can't, that they are just away, but they are so much more than that.