I am an Air Force wife. Most days, that doesn't have a lot of influence in my day-to-day. Most days, he works a 7-4 job, he gets weekends and holidays off, he makes okay money, and he gets to be a dad and a husband just like anyone else. He just gets to wear a super sexy uniform while he does it. ;)
However, there are some days, as every military wife knows, that he doesn't get to do any of those things. There are weeks and months at a time where we don't get to see him. He may be safe at a school in another state, calling me once or twice a day. Or he may be less-than-safe in the middle east and calling me once a week...if that. I try not to think about those times while we're in the "normal" day-to-day, when he's home.
Today, I read a blog post by a Marine wife who lost her husband in Afghanistan. I used to avoid reading things like that, or clicking on the "three US troops killed in Iraq" headlines. But I now click on every one and say a prayer for those men and women. I think they deserve to have their sacrifice acknowledged, even if it's "painful" to me. The blog was heartbreaking to read, and my stomach knotted when she wrote about the three men in uniform at her door; every military spouse DREADS that knock. The entire story was hard to read and made tears stream down my face.
The part that really hit home, though, was when she said something to the effect of "I'm so glad he always knew how much I loved him". As she was laying her husband to rest, she knew without any doubt that he knew how completely loved he was in his last moments. It made me think: would mine know? I really need to make a more conscious effort EVERY DAY to be sure he knows how completely and totally I love him, and I know that I don't always do it.
The military is unpredictable. Sure, any of us could get in a car accident at any time. But when the military is involved, the fact that my husband could be hurt or worse at any time is always in the back of my mind. There is no warning when deployments are coming, there is training, and, in our case, he works with guns every single day. Things happen. Knowing that, I should not allow myself to think that I always have tomorrow to do better. There is no guarantee of that.
