Jordy
03-20-2003, 07:19 PM
This is from a really good family friend. Her son-in-law was allowed to make a surprise trip home a month or so ago to witness the birth of his first child but now he's back in the Middle East. Hits really close to home when it's like this. :)
Hello--
Today is an odd sort of a day, edging on average.
I will go about the so-called "normal" things that call to me each day.
I will tidy the house where I didn't last night, keep the dogs separated while they're being fed so that they each get a chance to eat their own meals, check my email many times and respond, where necessary, prepare and finish my various reports for the Coast Guard Auxiliary, check the "apparatus" set into place this week that will be fed into the Auxiliary's emergency plan, go on a "run" to buy paint and some foodstuffs, make the various family calls that I try to make each day, now, or at least as often as possible, pay some bills. I also will take my very well loved dog into the veterinarian for hospitalization as he has just been diagnosed to have an advanced, fatal disease.
This is my day, today.
But the other part of my day is going with me during each of these seemingly mundane activities. I am carrying with me an anxiousness that I know won't subside until well into the future. I am thinking about my son-in-law, the Captain in the U. S. Army that I have spoken of recently as his wife, my daughter, had their first child in January.
I wonder if he is sleeping, now, or at least resting. I wonder if his outward confidence comes from deeply enough within himself to allow him peace. I wonder what these last few hours of waiting hold for him--he's been gone a long time, now, and the "hour" for which he was sent so far from home appears to be rapidly approaching. Half way around the world, I wonder if the weather--the sandstorms that he has spoken of as making him ill--have subsided. I wonder if maybe some cloud cover might soon exist so that it blanks the light of an almost-full moon, at least a little bit. I wonder what he is thinking about his homeland and those dear to him. I know he is serving his country with diligence and pride; we can all count on that.
Probably many of us have someone, however close to us, in harm's way a world away in a strange place called Kuwait, or some other strange-sounding place. This is simply my "someone."
Sometime during your day, would you please take a moment and stop--give this moment to those men and women of our armed forces who struggle and disrupt their daily lives in order that we can be engaged in our own daily lives, those lives that we live only in the way that we do because we are free.
My thoughts and prayers are with everyone's "someone."
Yours,
Mary.
[ March 20, 2003, 07:29 PM: Message edited by: jordanpaulk ]
Hello--
Today is an odd sort of a day, edging on average.
I will go about the so-called "normal" things that call to me each day.
I will tidy the house where I didn't last night, keep the dogs separated while they're being fed so that they each get a chance to eat their own meals, check my email many times and respond, where necessary, prepare and finish my various reports for the Coast Guard Auxiliary, check the "apparatus" set into place this week that will be fed into the Auxiliary's emergency plan, go on a "run" to buy paint and some foodstuffs, make the various family calls that I try to make each day, now, or at least as often as possible, pay some bills. I also will take my very well loved dog into the veterinarian for hospitalization as he has just been diagnosed to have an advanced, fatal disease.
This is my day, today.
But the other part of my day is going with me during each of these seemingly mundane activities. I am carrying with me an anxiousness that I know won't subside until well into the future. I am thinking about my son-in-law, the Captain in the U. S. Army that I have spoken of recently as his wife, my daughter, had their first child in January.
I wonder if he is sleeping, now, or at least resting. I wonder if his outward confidence comes from deeply enough within himself to allow him peace. I wonder what these last few hours of waiting hold for him--he's been gone a long time, now, and the "hour" for which he was sent so far from home appears to be rapidly approaching. Half way around the world, I wonder if the weather--the sandstorms that he has spoken of as making him ill--have subsided. I wonder if maybe some cloud cover might soon exist so that it blanks the light of an almost-full moon, at least a little bit. I wonder what he is thinking about his homeland and those dear to him. I know he is serving his country with diligence and pride; we can all count on that.
Probably many of us have someone, however close to us, in harm's way a world away in a strange place called Kuwait, or some other strange-sounding place. This is simply my "someone."
Sometime during your day, would you please take a moment and stop--give this moment to those men and women of our armed forces who struggle and disrupt their daily lives in order that we can be engaged in our own daily lives, those lives that we live only in the way that we do because we are free.
My thoughts and prayers are with everyone's "someone."
Yours,
Mary.
[ March 20, 2003, 07:29 PM: Message edited by: jordanpaulk ]