4 years today.

So I am starting my new blog on a very special day for me. Four years ago today I married the man I love more than anyone else on this earth and I have never looked back. Things have been far from easy, but I would change nothing. He is mine and I am his and we have made it through so much already. Our first year of marriage we spent apart, except for the first week and and a couple of weeks in the middle there. Deployment will, if nothing else, test the strenght of a couple's devotion. We made it through that and on top of a deployment we got pregnant when Jacob came home from leave and faced yet another challenge... parenthood. I imagine the prospect of becoming a parent is a terrifying and equally exhilarating experience for anyone, but I was sick with fear at the start. Sure, I had been with Jacob for years before we got married, but our marriage was still so new and we had spent virtually no time together since tying the knot. I don't think terror is a strong enough word actually. I got past that soon enough though. Jacob's excitement was infectious! So, he came home several months later to an obviously pregnant wife. This was not how I had pictured welcoming him home when he left for Iraq. Still, I don't think I could have cared less when I finally got to put my puffy, swollen hands on him again. We quickly found a house and shortly thereafter welcomed our sweet little Caleb into the world, a little over a month too early. He was so small, only 4 lbs. and 11 oz. The fear came back, only magnified a hundred times over. Despite and early birth and a few minor scares we took our little miracle home quickly and began building a family. I never knew what people were talking about when they spoke of a mother's love. I do now. There is nothing like it. I simply haven't the words. Jacob, Caleb, and I have slowly grown into a happy, not perfect, family over the past couple of years. I have come to love my husband more than I thought humanly possible. I sometimes wonder how my love for him could possibly grow and more, but I know that it will. I wonder what our love will be in another 20 years? How will I possibly contain it?
So we grew closer and then came the day I knew would come, but didn't want to acknowledge. We had started talking about when we would like to have another baby, hopefully a girl. I should have seen it coming. Complacency will lull you that way though. He came home and quietly went about changing out of his uniform as was his way. I knew he was unusually quiet, but really, he gets that way sometimes and I try to let him be. Again, I should have known. He told me he was going to deploy to Afghanistan. I shouldn't have been surprised, really I shouldn't have. I know what he does for a living and the price tag that comes with being married to this man. So it began.
The months upon months of training, the emotional bracing (on both sides), and in addition to this he had a few schools to go to. When people hear some one is deploying they think it is just the 12-15 months you hear about on the news. It is so much longer! They think when they hear somebody is in the National Guard that it must be easier. It isn't! My sweetheart in the Training NCO for his company and, bless him, it stressed him out in a way he never let others know about. In July of 08 he had AT and was gone for 3 weeks. He was home briefly after that and then off to school, the home and gone to school again. On and on it went. He finally came home, finished with school and the training began for every man and woman who would be deploying. July to April and I had already seen so little of my love. Poor Caleb was so confused to begin with. Just when he was used to kissing his daddy goodnight he would be gone and the crying at bedtime started. When he finally got used to daddy not being there, daddy would be back again. I don't know who had a harder time with this, me, Jacob, or Caleb. Caleb has finally gotten used to this erratic way of life. So much so that when Jacob came home the last time he didn't hesitate to run and hug his daddy and he didn't give me any trouble when he was gone again. This makes me both happy and sad.
I had thought that saying goodbye this time would be easier. It wasn't. It was harder than I believed possible. I hadn't realized how I had come to rely on Jacob's presence in my life. No matter his disposition from day to day he is the constant in my life and he keeps me sane while making me crazy at the same time. I don't worry overmuch. It is neither productive or healthy. Sure, I worry, but I keep it on the back burner and pray feverently for his safety and that of all of his comrades. I worry for all of the other soldiers who have become a part of our lives and I have come to care for. These too I pray feverently for. I have a son to raise and I try daily to remind him of his daddy. Not that this is really necessary. He walks around pretending to talk to his daddy on the phone all of the time. Another happy, yet sad at the same time moment. There are so many of those. I dread his 3rd birthday this summer. I don't know how I will hold it together. So all of these things together make this deployment exponentially harder than the last.
Today, May the first, is our 4th wedding anniversary. We have been together for almost 8 years altogether. So much has happened. Hopefully I will get to spend our 5th annivesary together. Celebrating an anniversary alone is a rather disheartening affair, but it is part of the military wife package and I will survive it. Many have before me and many more will after. This is the life I chose and given the opportunity, I wouldn't choose any differently. I love him. It is no picnic, but every moment spent with him is worth every moment I have to sacrifice away from him. In a little less than a year I'm sure I will be ready to explode with the loneliness of having him away so long, but it will be worth every moment to have him back in my arms and to look into his gloriously blue eyes again. We will be a whole family again and that is all that matters. I love my life, obstacles and all. I love my husband. There is no distance or amount of time that will change that. I am his. This is what it takes to be his and I willingly do my duty right along with him. I serve here. He serves there. Happy Anniversary to us!