Last night ’til I see him!

Holly — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:28:22 +0000

*At Stonehenge, November 2005, with our best friends, the Despains.

2*

Holly — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:59:09 +0000

At Mom & Dad’s in Colorado – Late Summer 2003. Nice apron*.

3*

Holly — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:18:31 +0000

*First Marathon Together – Disney Marathon – January, 2009

4*

Holly — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:01:19 +0000

*December 2007, Afghanistan. Thanks, Max! I love this picture!

5*

Holly — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:58:00 +0000

* Taken in Jerash, Jordan – Spring of 2009. Amazing, amazing place. Wearing a black shirt in the heat wasn’t on my All-Time List of Great Ideas, however…

6 more “sleeps”

Holly — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 20:45:33 +0000

Gone from Home again. Of course, John’s been gone for nearly two months. He’ll be deployed for a year, which is not as bad as many military families have endured, multiple times.

One thing we have going for us is that sometimes it works out that we deploy together – to the same place. In six more nights, and for three short days, I’ll be able to see him.

CanNOT wait!

*at Lydia & Gabe’s Wedding, October 2008, Vermont’s incomparable Northeast Kingdom

Artist on a Rainy Morning

Holly — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:24:49 +0000

Favorite Men

Holly — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:39:03 +0000

I sure miss all three of them…sure wish John weren’t gone for a year, and sure wish I lived closer to Dad and Armour.

Those of you who live close to family? I guess it might be easy to take it for granted, but I would seriously cherish that gift, if I were you.

Reading Partner

Holly — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 19:34:29 +0000

At what cost?

Holly — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 02:36:37 +0000

Sometimes, I think I have ADD (as in Attention Deficit Disorder) because I forget so many things, get distracted easily, and can’t seem to concentrate on any one thing.

Then I realize if I am reading about how to get a horse off the forehand, I’ll be mesmerized by the text and commit the process to (nearly) photographic memory. If I’m trying to figure out how to write guidance for a new procedure at work, I have to constantly, constantly correct my mind to stay on task. It’s a bit maddening – this process of disciplined thinking.

What I’m saying is that we can’t always pick what’s going to stick in our minds.

Tonight I went with one of our flag officers and our chaplain, and my mom – to a Wounded Warriors dinner at the VA’s Spinal Cord Injury center. We sat down to mushy fishsticks and quite good mashed potatoes and key lime pie that was green (the wrong color, for you non-Floridians…) and met these young veterans who’ve been catastrophically injured. Two things struck me. One was an action, and one was a thought.

First, the thought: I was struck by how many young men were accompanied only by their mothers. Now, I love my mother – and I honor all mothers – but I just kept thinking, if I were an able-bodied young man, I would feel pathetic and a bit hopeless…so how must these poor guys really feel, deep down inside? Many were too young to have had “the love of their life” and in the shape they were in, may not ever get that chance. It broke my heart.

Second, the action: our admiral bent down to give an Army Ranger his personal coin, and this young staff sergeant tried, determinedly, to give the admiral his Ranger Scroll from his shoulder – he couldn’t quite get it, and his mother had to help him. The gesture was so selfless, so respectful, so humbling. I went to shake his hand, and smiled into his eyes -

“Rangers lead the way!” I said.

“Hooah, ma’am!” he said – with a sense of humor about how slow and slurred his speech was.

He had a beautiful, strong face – despite the mottled skin on the right side that smoothed over the unevenness and the now-distorted angles. I wanted to talk to him – to find out how I could help – but honestly? What do you say to someone who has given so much? Nothing seemed appropriate.

I told Mom I would definitely want to live if I were a paraplegic – but not as a quadriplegic. Not after what I’ve lived, not after how I’ve loved and knowing I could never love or live again to compare.

Finally, as we drove home through the rain, not talking, I remembered a haunting picture and piece of writing captured by The New York Times from a young soldier in Iraq - SPC Ryen King:

This thought-provoking passage is from his journal, dated 2 April 2007 (he was killed 19 days later):

“People used to say to me before coming here, ‘Ryen don’t try to be a hero, just make it home safe.’

I thought to myself that there are only heroes in wars that matter, but now I’m thinking that there were heroes when wars mattered…”

…and then, as we got closer to home, I kept thinking about this story about a West Point grad who decided he couldn’t take life as he now knew it to be – remembered so poignantly by Matt Mabe, from the blog he and his girlfriend Molly Birnbaum share:

Drew Jensen was paralyzed from the neck down when in May 2007 a sniper shot him in the neck in Baqubah, Iraq. He had been trying to save one of his soldiers who was pinned behind a Humvee after a bomb exploded. From his hospital bed in Fort Lewis, Washington, Drew donated $10,000 to Walter Reed Army Medical Center to establish a fund to help families cover expenses while visiting their wounded loved ones. Then on Sept. 7, 2007, honoring his final request, Drew’s wife and mother took him off life support. He was 27.

My prayer tonight is for the ones I met (and didn’t meet) tonight. Our American brothers and sisters are suffering so much – and they don’t question why.

I find that I am. And I’ve thought of nothing else since 1800 tonight.

Life With Spectre