Skip to main content

A Big Shake Up

Kerry's base was hit by a rocket last week. Two soldiers were killed and six injured.


Luckily, Kerry was the one who told me about it. I didn't see it on the news and then worry, worry, worry until I heard he was okay. I already knew he was all right before I knew there had been an incident.


But......


After we talked, I looked up the info on the Internet. It was front-page news. Top story of the day. I read about it and a wave of nausea took over. I couldn't believe how sick I felt even though I knew he was all right.

It's hard knowing they are in danger. It's hard knowing other people are getting the news on what is about to become the worst day of their lives. There are parents, spouses, sibling, children whose entire lives are changed from this day on.

It's hard knowing that could still be me, any day.

I've been very complacent about this deployment. He's on a very secure base and he doesn't take convoys to other bases all the time like he did during his last deployment. I've felt very secure that he is safe and will be home soon.

That rocket really shook me up.

Kerry said it shook all of them up too. He said they all felt fairly safe and secure and this reminded them that they are in a war, actually.

I finally overcame the nausea but then the tears kept popping up for a couple of days. It's hard not to imagine what could happen. I try not to think about it usually, no good ever came of imagining a horrible scenario and stressing myself out.

But my brain doesn't know this and while I can control what I'm thinking about in the day time, at night my mind decides to visit these horrors on me.

I had a dream that I was in a room full of folding chairs with blue seats with a chaplain and an officer in dress greens. They had just told me that Kerry had been killed. Then (because even in my sleep, my mind will not accept this) Kerry walked in to the room full of folding chairs with blue seats (what was THAT all about?) and told me that it was a mistake, he wasn't dead after all.

The next morning Kerry called on Skype and I was tearfully telling him about my dream.

His exact words: "Yeah, but how did I look in the dream? Was I all buff and sexy? Because in my dreams, I've been working out."

Bless him, for making me laugh even when I'm crying.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Mammogram

I'm having my annual mammogram today. I always hear about how painful they are, but honestly, I've never thought they are that bad. Not the most comfortable, but not painful either. Every time I have a mammogram, I'm reminded of this story. It won the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition and I still get a kick out of it every time I read it. So I'm posting it here today for your reading pleasure: Erma Bombeck Writing Competition 1st place in Humor Category Winner Leigh Anne Jasheway of Eugene, Oregon "The First Time's Always the Worst" The first mammogram is the worst. Especially when the machine catches on fire. That's what happened to me. The technician, Gail, positioned me exactly as she wanted me (think a really complicated game of Twister - right hand on the blue, left shoulder on the yellow, right breast as far away as humanly possible from the rest of your body). Then she clamped the machine down so tight, I think my breast actually turned inside o...

Queen Emma's Summer Palace

We recently visited Queen Emma's Summer Palace in Honolulu. If you are expecting a "palace", you will be disappointed. It's a nice house but not particularly palatial . If you think of it as Queen Emma's Summer Cottage, you'll enjoy it more because it will meet your expectations. Queen Emma was the wife of King Kamehameha IV. Their only child, Prince Albert, died at age four, and King Kamehameha IV died a year later. It's a sad story. The home was used by the royal family in the mid-1800's. Today it holds artifacts from that time period. Some of the furnishings and memorabilia actually belonged to Queen Emma. Unfortunately, no photography is allowed inside, so I didn't take any pictures. I did, however, find some images on the internet which I am copying here. Don't sue me, please. I did try to buy postcards in the gift shop, but they didn't have any. This photo is of the parlor. Queen Emma acquired this baby grand piano later ...

Cookie Map of Egypt

Katie is studying ancient Egyptian history right now and in the interest of making it more "hands-on" for her, we've joined a co-op at our church. We've been part of the co-op for a long time, but we've not done history with them until now. I was in charge of this week's craft project so I had all the kids make maps of ancient Egypt out of cookie dough. Katie and I made one at home for practice, then we made one again at co-op so the pictures look different as I used some photographs from each session. Each child started out with one full tube of sugar cookie dough. They pressed each one out into a 10x6 inch rectangle as if it were clay or play dough. We used toothpicks to outline where we wanted land formations to be. Then we outlined the Mediterranean Sea with a blue gel. And filled it in with blue icing. We used Twizzlers to outline the Red Sea. Although the Red Sea isn't actually red, there is a seasonal algae there which is red in color. I thought the...