It may seem odd that I am going to follow up a post about how wonderful this season is with the fire team with a post about how this season is one of suffering, but surely, on the human plane, one season can encompass more than one characteristic.
John has been gone for 45 weeks. 315 days. It's been a loooonnnnngggg time.
Clearly, we have most of this deployment behind us. There is but one more calendar page to turn before we get to the page with the picture of the stick figure wearing ACU's and holding a weapon.
Still, true to form, the days left on the calendar seem to take up as many pages as they did 314 days ago. The days are long. Weeks drag on.
Welcome home signs are plastered on homes, the front gate, barracks. I'm in no hurry. We have plenty of time to make signs. I watch my friends welcome home their love. I don't harbor jealousy, or even envy. Just praise and thanksgiving that men who have spent months planting footprints in sand and mud in defense of our country, in defense of my little fire team, are once again planting them on American soil.
It's a reminder that I am standing on the cusp of welcoming home my own love. I'm thankful for that reminder, otherwise I might never lift my eyes from the ground, from watching one foot being placed in front of the other.
It seems that I will never catch up with the calendar. I check days off, but days are added to the end. I'm drowning in black sharpie across double digit numbers.
I need to find purpose in these days. The days between today and THEE day.
I stay busy.
I keep my mind busy.
I teach special sounds (surely, if waiting doesn't kill me, special sounds will).
I memorize new scripture.
I talk off the ears of my friends.
I laugh. Hard.
I keep my hands busy.
I wash shirts that have sat in unopened draws for months, waiting for the shoulders that fill them.
I shovel snow. I shovel it again. And again.
I change diapers.
I put one foot in front of another and the other in front again. I keep my eyes on the ground.
Surely, there is a lesson here. Surely, there is something to be gained from the waiting.
"The end of a matter is better than it's beginning, and patience is better than pride"
-- Ecclesiastes 7:7-9
