"I feel horrible about our conversation tonight... We loaded the kid's body on the plane just before I talked to you."
These are the words my husband wrote to me after a particularly rough phone conversation. We never fight on the phone and we always try to remain upbeat. On that particular night, I needed Nathan to let me lean on him and to empathize with my situation here at home. He was really amped up and speaking rather roughly to me. We weren't meshing well at all. I told him to tone down the testosterone because I couldn't handle it. What Nathan wasn't saying, couldn't say, was that they had just loaded the body of a young soldier from their unit onto the transport plane back to the states. They had draped his coffin with the flag and said their goodbyes.
The truth of this young soldier's death had just hit the news media and I was reeling from the loss of one of our men. It was difficult to hear of a loss so close to home. It truly sent the reality of this war and its possibilities straight through to my bones. I needed reassurance from my husband that he was safe and that his fate would not be death on a battlefield, but rather next to me, in our bed, when we're ninety. Nathan could only bring himself to talk about guns and cars. Those are his saftey zones and he ran to them. I didn't understand why and in the midst of my own fears and misery, I didn't care why. I needed something from him that he wasn't providing and I couldn't cope with that.
Today, nearly two weeks later, I open a letter from Nathan. He spends two thirds of the letter apologizing to me for not being there for me when I needed him and reassuring me that I and our future children will always be his top priority, not guns and cars. Just before he signs off, he leaves me with the truth of the situation that one difficult night. It breaks my heart to know that I did not reach out to my husband and support him because of my own needs. He was truly the one who needed love and reassurance that day. He was the one who put the body of a young comrade into a cargo plane and faced his own mortality. I was just the one reading about it in the headlines.
This letter reminds me that I am not the center of the universe. It reminds me that our time together is fragile and that there are many things in this life of deployment that remain unsaid. It reminds me that my husband is always the first to apologize and to put my needs in front of his own. It reminds me that he is my leader and I should follow his lead. It reminds me that someone out there lost a son and I am blessed to still have the phone calls of my dear husband. This letter reminds me of why we do what we do. Nathan serves his country because he is called by God to do so. Nathan risks his life and faces the truth of his mortality in order to preserve freedom for me and his future children. Nathan serves so that he can keep watch over young soldiers, so he can help to ensure that no more of them will travel home draped in a flag. Tonight, I thank the Lord for Nathan, my soldier and my hero.
