My Other Half

My husband is away at his monthly training with the Marine Corps this weekend. I stare at his side of the bed and it feels like a part of me is missing as corny as that may sound. As I lay here trying to go to sleep, memories from his last deployment to Iraq plague my mind. Several in particular stand out though.

During his last deployment, he was in the field (roaming the desert) 99.9% of the time. I was lucky if I was able to receive a letter/postcard once a month from him. Although he did try his best to call me twice a month with the satellite phone he had which had crappy reception by the way. I cherished every phone call I got from him because I had no other way to communicate with him except write him motomail (email that became printed letters) every night, but that didn't mean he got it the next day. For the most part. he would get 20 of my letters at the same time so there was some time that surpassed in between when it was written and when it was received. I remember one time I had missed his phone call because I was in class; he left a message which I listened to during break that ended up with me in tears. It wasn't bad news; it was just because I simply missed him, the sound of his voice brought me to tears. Near the end of his deployment, he was stationed at a base that had internet access. He was able to use his roommate's webcam to talk to me via yahoo messenger; he would let me talk my little heart out and he would listen everytime he was able to get on. Since his connection was s#$!@, the webcam was strictly for viewing purposes and we "talked" via chatting through the messenger. I used to wake up really early, or stay up really late to be able to chat with him since there is a approximately 15 hour difference in time. One time he had told me to go to sleep and wished me good night; I had left my messenger on per his request. When I woke up early that next morning, there were messages that he had written. I can't recall what he said exactly, but it was sweet for sure. I think lyrics to a song was part of it. It brought a smile to my face. Occasionally when he's away at his weekend training, I think about all the memories from that year. It was a bittersweet year for us. It was our first year of marriage and he was away.

I remember people who tried to understand what I was going through used to say when they asked me how long his deployment was. "Oh 7 months isn't so long." I know they mean the best, but that is the last thing you want to say to someone who is personally going through a deployment. Trust me. So please take note and do not try to console someone by saying the period of time isn't too long because to that person, it feels like an eternity especially at the beginning of the deployment. Until you are away from your loved one without a predictable timeline as to when you will be able to hear from them again, you don't really know what it's like. I'm not saying that I, or anyone else that has experience this, sit around and mope, I think we just prefer to be occupied with some other activity so we don't think about it.

Everytime that he isn't sleeping in the bed next to me, a part of me remembers the deployment and truly does miss him even though he is just away for the weekend, week, or night.