The Long Road...

I went to New York this weekend to see a good friend marry the love of his life, a truly wonderful experience. My son & I flew in to CT and stayed with my parents for a night both on the incoming and the outgoing nights, saved us quite a bit of money and allowed him to see my parents.

While on the way to New York we weren't in a hurry and I was itching to see some old New England style mixed with beautiful fall foliage, so we took the "scenic route". Up through the hills of Torrington, out through Sharon and on into New York. The winding roads were like a NASCAR road course on crack, lined with beautiful old farm houses and old barns that are still painted "barn red", taking you back to the days when life was new...back when people's lives weren't so busy and we weren't in a hurry.

It reminded me of growing up in a town just like that, the little town of Granby, CT wasn't much excitement, but it was home.  Those that lived there either couldn't wait to get out or couldn't imagine leaving.  All through middle school most of thought there was so much more of the world we could see if we could just get out of town, if we could just get out there to those other towns and cities that seemed to have so much more excitement.

Just before my sophomore year I got out, moved to South Burlington, VT and had the best of both worlds.  A small city that offered so much excitement, yet close enough to the "backwoods" side to cause some trouble.  We were fearless in those days...no worries, working for minimum wage at McDonald's with your best friend and out riding in cars with boys until midnight every weekend.  Back when you thought your best friend would be your best friend forever.

I miss those innocent days.

Now I am a mother and I worry about my son not knowing those wonderful experiences I had because our world has become so damaged.  I want him to go out and run in fields and collect lightning bugs as a child and then go back to that same field with a girl years later to steal his first kiss.

Where did the innocence go?  When did it stop being so easy and careless?  Why did that best friend have to move away and grow apart?

Oh, that's right, we had to become adults...

Finishing the drive down those long roads from Connecticut up into New York, I realized that those very roads were filled with memories, memories I wouldn't give back and never want to forget.  Memories that I don't think about often enough, but I wish I did.  Those roads are filled with long lost friendships, and friendships that still remain strong.

It's only when we grow up and get out of that place we longed to get away from that we realize how badly we want to go back there.  That the small town we couldn't wait to get away from is where you want to raise your kids.

What a long road it has been...

My Job As A Navy Wife

Recently Chet and I learned that we would be remaining in Jacksonville for at least his next full 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.

I am only one...

Helen Keller said “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”

I found myself writing a letter this morning to an awards board about some people that really touched my life while I was in Pensacola. I never thought that I would ever meet people that were not tied to the military the way that I am, but that would still want to help the military as much as they did. These people taught me about the true spirit of people, that there is good in everybody, sometimes you just have to look a little harder or you have to find a way to reach them, to motivate them, to guide them.

Now I find myself trying to come up with more ways to make a difference. I guess all of this free time is finally getting the better of me. It used to be that every day I got up in the morning and went to work, went about my business, then came home. Now I am not working really, other than some contracted work from home stuff. So, I have some free time, as one could imagine.

I think back to the day that Hunter told me he wanted to donate his piggy bank...what a caring child I have. He makes me want to be a better person, he makes me want to give more. But, with only one income right now and bills to pay, how can I give more? I know I can volunteer my time, but that is limited because Hunter is only at school right now from 8:30-11:30. So, what do I do then?

It was as I thought about all of this and about how we can all make a difference that I figured it out. If I can't give my time at volunteering, why not work to try to educate others on how they can help? Why not make it my goal to get people involved all over the US?

So, it is now my mission, my goal, to get everybody to give an hour of their life to help somebody else. I don't know yet how I will get this done, but I'm going to start right here.

I am going to appeal to all of you that read this, that enjoy reading about my times, my stories, my hurt and my smiles. I can point you in some sort of direction, but please give just an hour of your life. I'm telling you, it will be come addictive.

As Helen Keller said, "I am only one, but still I am one...". If enough of us give just an hour of our lives to help somebody else, the world would be a better place.

And so, in this part of my blogging, I am not going to write about a feeling or an experience that changed me. I want you to write about a feeling or an experience that changed you...tell me about the day you did something for somebody and how it made you feel, or how it changed you. I think that all of our stories together can help to inspire others of our friends.

And so, as you stop to think about what it is that you want to say for others to read and to grow inspiration from, I leave you with these lines from Nickelback's song "If Everyone Cared"...

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Then we’d see the day when nobody died

And I’m singing
Amen I, Amen I, I’m alive
Amen I, Amen I, Amen I
(I’m Alive)

And in the air the fireflies
Our only light in paradise
We’ll show the world they were wrong
And teach them all to sing along

How I remember the day that changed us all...

Everything went great that year after dealing with January. Chet and I grew closer and closer and by August he had proposed. For the most part the first half of that year was great.

Then came September. I had just moved in with Chet and his roommates and all was good. Chet was set to go on another underway and I had a new job lined up. That Tuesday morning started off as any other morning that Chet had left on an underway...

We got up early that morning and said our good byes, we had spent enough time apart to know that everything would be fine for the next month and a half. He said good bye and I started to get up and get ready for my first day as the Sales Manager at a local hotel. Little did any of us know what the day had in store for us. It was just another September 11th to most of us.

I can remember being in the lobby of the hotel as the maintenance manager came running in pushing a television on a cart and then jumped up on a chair to pull a cable drop out of the ceiling "You have to see this!" he yelled as he connected the television to the cable and turned it on. There in front of us was this terrible image of one of the Twin Towers with smoke pouring out of it. We all know how the next few hours went.

I left for lunch that day and found two messages on my phone from my friend Leigh, she had just moved to Groton, CT with her new husband (Chet's old roommate) and had also seen the images that plastered every television station that morning. She was scared, I was too...her husband was out to sea with Chet on a fast attack submarine that was only supposed to be gone for 4-6 weeks and now this happened, we didn't know what this would mean for them. I called her back and we met at the apartment that Chet and I shared with his friends Dave and Eric. Dave too was on the USS Toledo with Chet and Tim and Eric had reported for work that morning as usual. I got to the answering machine to find no messages from anybody. Leigh and I sat and watched the images over and over on television.

The weeks that followed the episodes of 9/11 are mainly a blur. Leigh and I bonded over lots of alchohol and thanks to our friend Holly, we made it through a bad time, created our own candle light vigil with white candles stuck into Budweiser bottles. The boat came home just a few days later than planned and for the most part, everything went back to normal. Holly and Shawn had their wedding as planned, without the delay that those terrible people tried to put on it.

It was in the face of this tragedy that we all found our own outlets for pain. Each and every person dealt with all that the events brought and how it changed our own individual worlds. No two people had the same story, and no two people had the same feelings. We have all moved on and taken from that day different lessons.

The start of the hardest year...

When I think about the hardest year I think I have ever been through, my first thoughts are really of the first day of that year...

It was January 2001 and I had just returned from spending New Year's in Dallas with my cousin celebrating his 21st birthday. I haven't thought about that trip in a long time, and it wasn't really where I was going to go when I sat down to write this part. But, I guess that reflecting on the past brings about things a little at a time.

I remember being at Doug's house on New Year's eve with him and all his friends. We were drinking and partying and just having a blast. They were a fun bunch to be around. I remember looking out the window that night and seeing the snow falling, and I mean FALLING! We ran outside and they all began to have a snowball fight. What fun it was. I never would have thought then that we would be burrying Doug just 3 years later. He and I weren't that close, but close enough that I was beyond upset when he died. Pictures are all I have left now, I keep them tucked away in a box and I come across them every now and then. Oh Doug, how I hope you are doing well now. You are truly missed down here.

After the trip to Texas I came home to Connecticut to find out that a good friend of mine's father had passed away and we would be laying him to rest the following weekend. Steve's Dad was like a big cuddly teddy bear. I ended up at the bar the night before the funeral looking to dull the pain. It was the third funeral I would attend in just two years, numbers that were too big for a 21 year old. It was that night that I met Chet. He was just home from a six month deployment and neither of us were looking for a relationship. Little did we know that just a few short months later we would be engaged and then be married a year and a half later.

I haven't thought about how hard that year was for me. I also haven't thought about how that year changed my life so much. Why is it that good memories bring you around to bad ones, and those bring you around to good ones and so goes the circle over and over again?

I wish I could take them all and make them all good, and make the bad ones go away. But, I guess those are the ones that develop our character, the ones that teach us who we really are and the ones that mold us into who we will become.

I am trying to remember how it all went...

Starting To Look Back

I found myself chatting with an old friend today whom I haven't really talked to in a long time. We were good friends once, lost track and thanks to one of those social networking sites have been able to catch up again. It was during this conversation that I had mentioned reading his wife's blog about losing her mother and that I knew what it was like, since I had lost my Dad in 2001. I mentioned that in my renewed loved for writing I hadn't "gone there yet", and it was then that he told me that when I'm ready I might find that it's my best stuff yet. As the night as progressed I find myself looking back on that year and how hard it all was and I realize that he just might be right. Writing about what happened to me and what I went through during that time might be good for me, I might find some deep writing that I didn't know I had, I might also help somebody else.

So, I am going to start looking back on those times and start to dig them up again. As hard as it might be, the events of that year alone could fill a book for me. In just that one year I laid a friend to rest, I met my now husband, I watched the world change, I lost my Dad and I realized that my sister and I will never be close again.

I hope that I do my memories justice with my writing, and I think that he's right when he told me that I just might find some of my best work yet.

We'll see...

The True Meaning of the Season of Giving

Last night my son, Hunter, and I packed up some miscellaneous boxes and cans of food and drove out to the mall to drop off the items to the local radio stations food drive for MANNA, our local food pantry. Hunter has just loved being a part of the giving that we do as a family. Over the summer he rode his bike to raise money for St. Jude's ($200+ all by himself), then he helped me collect items for the local USO, then there was the day that truly made me feel good about the lessons I have taught him about giving back...

A few weeks ago I picked Hunter up from daycare and as we walked out the door he pointed to a large box that was set outside his classroom's door. The conversation that followed this gesture brought tears to my eyes:
"Mommy, we have to fill this whole box."
"Okay, we'll bring some stuff in to help fill the box up, we'll go to the store tonight."
"No Mommy, we have to fill the WHOLE box!"
"Hunter, everybody helps to fill the whole box, together."
"No, there are lots of people that don't have the money for food Mommy, we have to fill the box!"

WOW! I thought as we walked down the hallway. But, it doesn't stop there. That night I walked into Hunter's room to find him trying to get his Thomas The Train bank open. "What are you doing?" I asked. "I need to get my money out Mommy." "Why?" "To put it in the giving jar." After a few minutes of talking he explained to me that Ms. Rachel, his teacher at school, had a jar that they were going to put their change in and that money would help people who couldn't pay for their food too. Together we opened his bank and then went into the office and got the Mommy and Daddy chane jar and emptied that too...together we had close to $15.00 for him to bring to school for the giving jar. About a week or so later his other teacher, Ms. Melissa, informed me that she had taken the jar to get the change counted and they had a little over $75.00 in the jar that she was going to take to the local mission to help them give food to the homeless.

I have been touched by the kindness of my child. Through him I have learned the true value of the season of giving. Who would have guessed that a 4 year old could teach a 29 year old this lesson?

It is through our children that we can make a difference in the future. It is the lessons that we teach them, and they in return teach us, that really makes all the difference.

I don't want to raise the typical "military brat child" that we hear about...I want the child that is humbled by the world and would rather give the money in his Thomas the Train bank to those in need than to save it to buy a new toy that he won't really care about in a year.

Who says that money can't buy happiness? I bet that money from his bank bought happiness for those in need at the mission.