When your son goes to war
I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of my son for his 18 days of leave. I am already braced for the time because I know it will all happen fast and furious, and I will be saying good-bye before I am ready. As if a mom is ever “ready” to say good-bye when her son is leaving for a battle zone.
I have been thinking long and hard about him the past few days. Well, really since he left for Iraq back in April, but more so recently. I talked with him on a pretty regular basis when he first arrived in Iraq. The first few months seemed almost “normal” in a very weird way. He would work his shifts and then we could chat on the phone or through IM for a little while. We talked about as much then as we did when he was in the States. It was shortly after the surge was complete that he and I lost contact for a while.
The days were long. I am not wanting to be overly dramatic, but in all honesty there were a handful of days that were downright agonizing. While he was working in the surge in a very battle ridden area, I too was having a surge of my own. A surge of fear, anxiety and dread — and a surge of deep grief. The surge of silence from him was deafening. The news in the beginning seemed encouraging some days, and scary on others. That is when we would get any. There were so many Operations going on that were kept under wraps (and for that I am grateful not begrudging a bit!) and so I never knew really what he was doing. The first few phone calls were brief. He was preoccupied and flat out told me he was focused on work, but he couldn’t talk about it so he was just calling to say “Hi, I’m alive. Love you. Bye.” In a very ironic way it would be no different than a doctor or a therapist, who are sworn to confidentiality, being preoccupied with a patient that they can’t talk about. Small talk is fun with strangers… it’s awkward with loved ones.
So, I survived, and I managed to deal with the emotions. Really I dealt with them by letting them out. I cried. I screamed into a pillow a few times. I blogged about it. I exercised like I was training for the Olympics, and first and foremost I prayed. I prayed for his safety with nearly every breath. It felt more natural to pray for that than it did to eat or sleep. I prayed for his physical safety and for mercy — that he would be spared anything that would wound his mind or his conscience beyond healing. I still pray for that.
It’s an odd bend in the road on this journey in life when your son goes to war. You, as a parent, are left behind to tend to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Your progeny is out fighting while you are home doing what you always do — with the added role of morale builder, prayer warrior and package packer/sender. I know I have said this in past posts, but it’s just not natural. That doesn’t mean it’s not right, but it just goes against the natural instinct of a parent to want to protect and give to their kids — and now the roles in that regard are somewhat reversed. It’s a far cry from the anxiety you felt when you let go of his bike for the first time when he was learning to ride it without training wheels.
I am not sure what all has changed. I am still waiting to see him, look at him, and hear his voice. I think I will know right then and there if things have changed somewhere deep inside of him. He will always be the young man I raised to me, but he has entered a realm of his manhood in a zone where only other young men are allowed to go. He has lived through things with them, his fellow soldiers, that his very own family will not fully understand. We simply can’t. All we can do is trust that he will tell us what he needs, and I pray he can trust that we will do the best we can to ensure that he gets it.
I guess life happens when your son goes to war. Like it or not you can not stop the changes from occurring. You can not freeze time, nor can you prevent change in yourself. No matter what you do to prepare you both will walk away from this experience different people. I guess we can only pray that we walk away stronger and better than we were before.
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