Randy was deployed this past Wednesday. (11th May)
He will be gone until around Christmas. 7 months roughly.
If you've ever known that your time with someone is going to be coming to an end (whether permanently or temporary) there is this feeling like you are running towards the end of this high cliff...and you get to the edge and you try to skitter to a stop and back away. That's sort of what our week before deployment feels like.
Trying to get last minute things finished. Trying to spend as much time as humanly possible together.
Setting plans in place. Wills-always unpleasant. Power of Attorney-I'll try to contain my excitement. Trying to learn things I don't know how to do that I'll need to know.
The kids getting read a million books by dad, because he wont be able to do it for a long while. I try to memorize what it looks like when he holds the kids, or smiles at them. The way they look at him. Like he's the greatest play toy on earth.
I try to tell him at every opportunity that I love him and that if he cheats on me while in port- I will emasculate him with my bare hands. Cause I will not have that shit, I will not have it.
I try to really feel and commit to memory- his hands, because I need that memory to last while hes gone. I need it. I need to remember what it feels like for that hand to hold mine.
And then the day comes. I haven't afforded myself to cry. Neither has Wyatt. Neither has Randy. We did everything we possibly could before this day came, to prepare ourselves and in our minds..."We got this." Our nerves steeled and brave faces plastered on, we walk to the pier. Wanting to keep it short and sweet, not to draw it out, we want to say goodbye quickly. Its never that simple. I cry. Its always at the last minute. When you realize. Shit. Its here. This is it. There's the ship. No going back now. (How deep a shit would we be in if I cracked him upside the head with my platform shoe and dragged his unconscious ass back to the car?)
Wyatt- my little man, still has his brave face plastered on and tells dad in a quiet voice "I don't want you to go." Randy hugs him. What else can be done?
Randy asks Emma for a kiss goodbye. She punches him instead. Yeah. Shes taken the high route and is just plain pissed over this fiasco. Randy rebounds gracefully and eventually gets his kiss.
Goodbye. We wait till he is out of sight before we turn our backs on the pier and walk to the car.
I buckle in Emma (who's still pissed and thinks dad is coming back in the morning) and look at Wyatt. His eyes are beet red and it looks like his eyes are filled with unshed tears. "Wyatt?" I say. He says, "Mom, I think I need to cry." "Do it." I tell him. And my little guy who kept his brave face on in front of dad, has finally let it out. Bravo child. You're braver than I was.
This is what hurts the most. No matter the preparation. No matter the time you spend. No matter how steeled and ready you think you are. You cant really prepare for how much the actual goodbye is going to hurt. Albeit temporary, it hurts.
