tour. Excited as I am, it gets to the point day by day that I realize that with the end of his training comes the day he will deploy again.I have spent the last 5 years with my husband at home, with the exception of a few days here or there and the 6 weeks when he was in Rhode Island for training. He has been there to help through the nights when Hunter got sick, or the days when I felt like crap too.
I have joked with friends and family during that time that I couldn't wait for him to go on deployment, that I needed "my time", but as that time comes closer and closer it occurs to me that when he does deploy, when he is gone for whatever period of time it is that the Navy has dictated for him to be gone, that I will once again be alone...that my support for those nights and days will be gone. That my best friend will be somewhere else and I will find myself having to juggle one thing or another in order to just make it from when I wake up until I go to bed.
I keep trying to find that "silver lining"...I have friends to help me, Hunter is starting kindergarten so if I do finally find work I won't have to break the bank in order to pay for daycare. I just keep telling myself that the only difference between when he was deployed before and now (other than the fact that we have Hunter now) is that he'll be in the air and will land everyday, instead of being under the water, partially in harms way.
I am married to Chet...but I am also married to the Navy, it is my job as a Navy Wife to stand tall when that ship, boat or plane leaves so that my sailor does not worry. It is my job to hold down the home front while he is gone and to make sure that I keep his family safe. It is my job to be standing there on the pier, or the tarmacs in our case, when he arrives home, and to hug him, welcome him home, and start to prepare to do it again.
I have built it all up so much so that I guess I thought it would be easy to do it again. But, I guess what really makes it hard, is that while I am missing him inside, I have to be strong, because Hunter does not know a day without Daddy...or at least being able to hear his voice on the other end of the phone.
How do you prepare a child for his Daddy to leave...?
It will be hard...But, Chet is Hunter's hero...and we'll be there waiting for him to arrive home...on that tarmac waving and waiting eagerly to wrap our arms around him when he steps off that plane.
