Panic

It's nearly one in the morning and I've just spent the last hour frantically tearing our house apart looking for one thing. I woke in a start wondering when I had last seen a gift Nathan had given me our first Christmas together. He took one of his dog tags and attached it to a tag that had a picture of the two of us etched on it with a quote. "We don't remember days; we remember moments."

After Nathan gave me a necklace from Tiffany & Co when he was home on leave, I took the tags and put them away. Since summer began, I haven't worn any jewelry to avoid odd tan lines. For some reason, tonight, right now, I needed to find that first gift Nathan gave to me. I hadn't seen the dog tags since I moved into our new house. I felt panic as I searched the house for them. For some reason, I felt like I couldn't know that Nathan was coming home, that he was alright, until I had those tags in my hands. I went through closets tearing apart boxes full of random things. With each box I felt more and more guilty that I would have taken such a precious gift and tossed it in a box. I couldn't find it anywhere. I tore through my multitude of bathroom supplies thinking it may have ended up there when I took it off last. Still no luck. More panic. More fear. More guilt. How could I have disregarded such an important piece of Nathan's heart? Have I done that all along? Have I taken him for granted? Have I not done all I could do to tell him that I love him? I prayed and prayed with each box and each closet that the Lord would lead me to this elusive piece of metal. No luck.

Then it occured to me that I hadn't really checked the Nathan box. Since we met, I've had this wonderful old antique box that I bought just for the purpose of holding things that were connected to my time with Nathan. I still have the ribbon that was tied around the first bouquet of flowers. I have the receipt from the purchase of our wedding bands. I have the box in which he delivered his precious dog tags. Every tangible piece of my life with Nathan resides in this box. So I went to the box and after a short search, I found his precious tags. I don't ever want to lose them again. I'm glad that they were in the Nathan box and not at the bottom of some box of random things. I'm glad that Nathan is on my mind and heavy on my heart tonight. I don't want to take any piece of that man for granted ever. I miss him so much I can hardly breathe right now. I just want him to be home and here in our bed. I want to be able to sleep soundly. I want our lives to be together and not thousands of miles apart. He'll be headed out of Kuwait tomorrow on his way to the United States. I'm so glad that I can put those dog tags back around my neck while I wait to be back in his arms.

Thank you Lord for finding what I was searching for. Thank you for allowing me to live my life with the one I was searching for. Thank you for bringing my search to and end and for bringing him home safely.

The Waiting is So Hard

Yesterday Nathan left Iraq. He is sitting in Kuwait, waiting. He'll land on American soil on Saturday night. I leave for Las Vegas on a mission trip on Saturday afternoon. There is just a week and a half between me and Nathan. In just a few short days, this whole ordeal will be over with. The closer we get to the end, the harder this all becomes. I have so many things to get done in the next 48 hours before I leave. I'm just missing him so much right now. More than ever. The first week of a deployment is the only thing that compares to the last week of a deployment. It is so hard knowing that he is just out of reach. I'm so tired of not being able to hold him and see his face. I want to be able to crawl under the bed and hide for the next nine days. I don't want to function or to clean or to prepare. I don't want to go on this mission trip. All I want is my husband back.

30 DAYS

In just 30 days my dear, sweet soldier will be out of Iraq. He won't yet be in our home or in my arms, but he'll be on his way. I can't think of a better happening in my life. I'm getting anxious and excited. There are so many unknowns. There are so many possibilities. Regardless, I will soon have the wonderful privilege of being Nathan's wife in person and this long long journey of Waiting On Nate will be finished. I'm sure I will have more thoughts and more tears in the next 30 days. The last month before being with Nathan is always the hardest. I'm just feeling wonderful about his impending arrival and I thought I'd share that piece today.

Thank God for a nearing end to the journey called Waiting On Nate.

The Defining Wait

It seems that I come to a crossroads periodically where I feel a need to leave some of my thoughts here. We are now well into the second year since I started this blog and I am still waiting. I had no idea that I would wait this long or that my life would change as much as it has. Nathan is still in Iraq, still working to change things there. He is ever focused on his mission and I am more and more proud of him as each day passes. He has been deployed for 20 months now and we're down to the 60 day mark. The countdown has begun one more time and yet, this time things feel different. This will be the final countdown for this deployment. In 60 days, there will be no more counting, no more waiting. Oddly enough, the waiting has been my defining characteristic for the past 20 months. Being a military wife, waiting for my husband to return to me, that has been my purpose, my focus, my stress, really, my everything for nearly two years. Soon, Nathan will return and life will change dramatically. It will be amazing and wonderful and new. I am thrilled to begin my marriage and to spend every day with my best friend. It isn't that I don't look forward to his return. It is more that I have spent two years looking forward and in 60 days, time will stop. For a single solitary moment, everything on earth will stand still and Nathan will be back at home. He will be normal; we will be normal. It will be time to redefine who we are as individuals and as a couple. It will be hard and it will be perfectly easy. There won't be anymore looks of pity and stupid comments. I won't have to kill my own spiders and unclog my own drains. I won't wake up alone again. Nathan won't live in a trailer in the middle of the desert. He won't eat food he hates and work ridiculous hours in 140 degree heat. The part of all of this transition that most people don't see is the part where we both grieve. There is a part of both of us that will have to say goodbye to who we've been for two years. We will have to become something new and a beginning always marks an end. At one point Nathan told me that his little trailer in Iraq is the one place in nearly 10 years that he has lived the longest. There are so many people who think that he will just step off the plane and be thrilled to be home and Iraq, for both he and I, will just fade into the past. The truth is, Iraq will come home with Nathan. He won't be the man I married and I'm not the woman he married. We will fight new battles in 60 days. There won't be any mortars or rockets but the enemy is ever present. The enemy will attempt to drive his wedge of distance and isolation in between us and we will fight him. We will win the battles that are about to ensue. We will call upon the name of our Lord to see us through this period in our lives. There will be so much joy and celebration but I am also strikingly aware of the dull ache that we will both have from all the waiting we've done. The waiting changes people and it has changed us. So, I look forward to the movement of time and the arrival of my soldier, my hero, my Nathan. I also know that it won't be easy. Once everyone has forgotten us and no one cares what Nathan has done for our country, we will still be left with the scars of time, the scars of the wait. If you know a soldier be sensitive to his scars, to his pain, to his longing for the one place you assume he ought to hate. Be sensitive to his wife as well, to her scars, her pain, her defining wait. Remember that their battle doesn't stop when he steps off the plane. Remember also that their commitment to the cause hasn't changed and when the next set of orders comes and the next wait begins, he will stand and fight and she will stand and wait. Remember to honor him when you speak to her. Tell her that you appreciate what he does and most importantly, never tell her that you're sorry he's gone and she's waiting. She isn't sorry. She is proud. She is dedicated. And she will wait.