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.

Time Machine

I find lately that I am living in the year 2008, if only in my own head. Being away from Nathan has taken it's toll and I don't want to think of anything other than a life that has him present in it. I want the deployment to be over and I want OCS to be done and gone. I want to be in his arms tonight, cuddled up in our bed. Instead, I am here at the end of 2006, unable to sleep despite it being way past my bedtime. In three days, our best friend, Leland will arrive in Minnesota to help me load the trailer and drive to Kansas. It is time to move again and I'm left with the same feelings. No matter where I go, Nathan isn't there. At the very least in Kansas there will be people who know him, or who knew him once upon a time. There are people there who miss him and who pray for him. His family is there and I know that they will help me through the next year and a half of ups and downs with Nathan coming in and out of our lives as he progresses through the demands of this career. I know, and have always known, that being a soldier is what is best for Nathan and for our family. He is just crafted to be a soldier and he is the best soldier I have ever known. I also know that I am not, nor have I ever been, up to the task of being a soldier's wife. I am terrible at this whole thing. I have no idea how to be the strong and confident wife that Nathan needs. All I know is that the only way through this life of ours is for me to lean entirely on our Lord. He knows how to craft me into the wife I must be just as He knew how to craft Nathan into the soldier he is. Although I often dream of a life where we travel as missionaries and we are free to be together every day of our lives, I know in my heart that is not the life set before us. It is hard, unbearable even, but He gives me a new set of mercies and a new heap of grace every single day. He knows how to get me through every moment and He knows the plans He has for us.

Tonight, as I become increasingly more drowsy, I thank our Lord, my Father, for today's mercies and for daily teaching me to trust Him for Nathan's safety and for our future.

Moving to Kansas

After a lot of discussion throughout the months that I have been here in Minnesota, we have decided it would be best if I moved to Kansas. It turns out that Nathan will be attending Officer Candidate School beginning in June of 2007 and will not return to Minnesota until early in 2008. That would mean that I would be alone in Minnesota for another solid year and a half. It has been hard for me to be here alone for the past 7 months. I am grateful that I have had so many friends here and that so many people have lifted me up and taken such good care of me. I have just reached a point where I really need there to be someone at home when I get there. It has been hard to walk into this empty apartment. I am quite lonely and the absence of Nathan breaks my heart every day. Being with family and living with my dear mother and father in law will help me to get through the next year and a half without Nathan.

It is now November 11th, Veteran's Day, and I will be leaving here in just 19 days. I am so excited for the change of pace and I'm thrilled that I won't be spending Christmas without family around. I'm looking forward to learning more about Nathan's family and developing some really strong bonds with them. I will be attending school in Kansas working on my Sign Language Interpreter certification. (For those of you who don't know, both of my parents are deaf so sign language is quite dear to my heart.) I'm so excited to start on a path towards something that can be a productive force in my life. I have spent so many years now just wandering about without any idea of what it is I want to do. I have a lot of peace now knowing that I will be working towards a goal and that I won't be a secretary anymore. All of the jobs I have had have been good for me and I have learned a lot about who I am through those jobs. Now it is time to develop a career.

There are so many things that I am looking forward to now that we have made this decision. There will be many people I will miss greatly over the next year and a half. They will all be in my prayers and I will look forward to returning to Kansas with Nathan and reconnecting with everyone. I feel good about this decision and I am looking forward to all that God has in store for us in Kansas. I grateful for a husband who is willing to make change when it is time to make change. I'm thankful that we can both roll with the punches and focus on our future goals rather than our present situation. It is the hope of our dreams for the future that keeps us moving through these hard times away from one another.

Today I just thank God that He knows how our lives will turn out and that all of our worries and frustrations can be turned over to him, that we don't have to worry because we know Him.

Distractions

I just couldn't go home after church today. I drove out and spent the afternoon with some friends and I couldn't seem to leave their house. I got so tired I had to head for home but it was hard. I felt the sadness wash over me as soon as I got in the truck and the quiet set in again. It is nice to have so many distractions in my life, so many people who want to help me through this time. The hard part is when all of the distractions are done for the day, when there is no distracting left to do. Then the reality sets in and I'm right back where I started, missing Nathan and wishing for this all to be over with. Each day makes me miss him and long for him ever more than the day before. I feel disconnected and incomplete. I just want him home with me and I want to snuggle up next to him in our bed tonight. I'm sad and I feel very alone. Even the dogs don't seem to be able to calm me tonight. Sleep seems to be the only solution so I'm off to bed. Hopefully tomorrow will be full of distraction.

Tonight I thank God for Nathan and I thank Him for the passing of another day. We're one day closer.

Our Empty Home

There is something that is deafeningly quiet about our home now. I feel the absence of him in a way unlike any I've felt thus far. Having him here for that short time had this quality of infusing him into this place. I can't hardly open my eyes in our apartment, our truck, or our town, without seeing him. His gloves are sitting on the passenger seat of the truck and his clothes are in the dirty laundry basket. I took the dogs to the park earlier this week and all I could see were my memories of him playing and running around with our dogs, Whiskey and Gunner. We were really a family for those two weeks. It was Nathan and me and our two boys and the world was just as it should be. Now it is just me and the dogs, our boys, and all is no longer as it should be.

I just watched the movie that we saw on our last date before Nathan left Vermont. We had been together eight days and I remember crying in his truck in the parking lot after the movie. I remember the feeling that a part of me was leaving and I would never be whole again. The problem with that feeling is that it is only magnified by our marriage and the growth of our bond. Today I miss him in a way I never thought possible. I've been hurt before and I've gone through things that caused a lot of pain but never have I been so vulnerable to someone else. Nathan touches parts of me that I didn't know I had. He has become a part of me and I feel so exposed and so lonely without him.

It breaks my heart to think of where Nathan is tonight. I know that he is sleeping in an uncomfortable bed in a trailer in the desert. For the next six months he won't feel any of the comforts of home. He won't be close to me and I won't be able to touch him, to hold him, to help him heal his hurts and to share his joys. For the next six months he will live his work day in and day out without rest. For the next six months he will be virtually alone, separated from everyone that he loves in a harsh world of dangers and frustrations. For the next six months I will miss him and worry for him with every fiber of my being. For the next six months we will both learn infinitely large lessons in leaning on and trusting in our Lord.

I would give anything just to be there with him, to comfort him and to help him sleep at night. All I really want is to be there to hold onto him when his day has gone badly and to listen to his wonderful stories of his time with the Iraqis and all of his adventures. I want to be there to be his sounding board and his shoulder to cry on. I want to support him and to be all that he needs me to be. Sometimes this empty house and these 12000 miles make me feel so helpless and so alone.

Tonight, in the striking reality of the absence of Nathan, I'm thankful for my dogs, who lay right by my side and keep me sane through all of this. They don't say anything awkward or attempt to understand something that they will never be able to relate to. They just lay here next to me and let me know that they are here and I am not alone. I'm thankful that God knows where I'm at and He sees me through all of these days. I'm thankful that He will care for Nathan when I cannot. I'm thankful that He cares for me and has provided a faithful, loving husband and in his absence two faithful, loving dogs.