American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay was once described as having “a mouth like a Valentine.” I’m more likely to fall into the “mouth like a sailor” category, but I understand her feeling exactly when she wrote this military wife quote,
“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night.”
Why is it that daytimes during deployment are not that big of a problem? I can fill my days.
It is just the nights that yawn open. The minute the light starts to fade I am suddenly so aware of the part of my life that ought to belong to my husband.
We ought to be eating dinner together. We ought to be wrangling over whose turn it is to supervise homework. We ought to be peeling back the covers at the same time and listening to the house settle around us.
I wish that after years of military life that I would be more adept at handling that ‘hole in the world.’ I wish I were one of those people skateboarding up one side of that hole and down the other and doing it with a little flare.
Instead I am more like the poet, falling into that hole again—and missing my sailor like hell.
About Jacey Eckhart
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This really hit home!At this point I’d just like to be on the same coast with my husband. He is staioned in San Diego. He sent me back east before he deployed. He got back in July and I’m still here. :(
Hoping to get back soon! Fill in that gaping hole. . .
Wow, I thought it was just me….
I put him on the plane once again yesterday for Iraq, and this blog post came to mind again, and so did so many of you guys… I've been thinking again too much lately… That always makes me write poetry.
Would I Be Willing
Would I be willing a second time to do it all over again,
Knowing what I know now, but I did not back then?
Would I be willing to place my hand over my heart in front of the bandstand,
Knowing what I do now of things commanders without honor can so carelessly demand?
Would I be willing to hear the questions of our children and to look into their eyes,
Knowing what I do now, just how would I answer the pleas and their cries?
Would I be willing to spend nights alone thinking of the threat the enemy would wield,
Knowing what I do now of how many would take their own lives after the battlefield?
Would I be willing to see him brought off the plane on the gurney,
Knowing what I do now, would I still agree to make this journey?
Would I be willing to hold back tears, and kiss him goodbye with a smile,
Knowing what I do now of the horrors of PTSD mile after mile?
Would I be willing to roll him again and again down the VA corridors,
Knowing what I do now about all it means to be a Wounded Warrior?
Would I be willing to hear the bugler play Taps, and to accept the folded flag in my hand,
Knowing what I do now of how this endeavor was lacking in a wise and committed plan?
Would I be willing a second time to do it all over again,
Knowing what I do now, but I did not back then?
I have this sentiment and answered this way after the vow renewal blog post. I would certainly renew my vows over and over again, but no, knowing what we know now…I think we'd be Quakers….