How It Is-THE CALL

For those who think that going day to day is smooth sailing for those left at home, I can tell you that it's not. We fight our own war. You see, those who are over in the sand are in grave danger every day, and while I do not trivialize that in any way, it is that exact danger that puts us left here in mental jeopardy. He says, for example, that he will call a certain day, and then he does not.

The panic begins.

Now this is a strange feeling for someone who does not ordinarily deal with this sort of thing on a day-to-day basis, and so I am not equipped to handle it well. The best way to describe it is a wave of terror that can come and go at the worst moments. The phone becomes an appendage. Suddenly you realize that you have left the room without it and your chest tightens until you cannot get a breath, your eyes water, and you just KNOW that he called while you were so STUPID. You race to find it and check and then the disappointment sets in when you see that there are no missed calls. Again, your chest tightens, your eyes water, and by this time you do not know if you should feel relief that you did not miss it or anger that he STILL has not called like he said he would. As you are deciding how to feel a third concern sets in that he might not have called because something terrible has happened. Then generally the tears start....Hopefully at this time you are in the privacy of your own home and not somewhere like work, the store, or a meeting where everyone is in the middle of telling you how much they admire how courageous you are being.

That is also another element of call panic. The well-wishers. They are the wonderful people in your life that mean to be so kind and tell you how great you are, and how much they admire both you and your man, and want to "do something for you if you need ANYTHING". (My yard is about a foot tall, I am allergic to grass, and the well-wishers are nowhere to be seen...). One of the scariest parts of the panic is when you see a well-wisher approaching and the chest is in tight mode. You KNOW they are going to say something, you KNOW they have the best intentions, (they really are wonderful people) you hope they will just decide to talk about the weather because you do not want the flood of emotion to come out. Surely if you are not equipped to handle this, they most certainly are not. So you smile, thank them, and hope they do not notice that you just need them to move along so your phone can ring....

Usually these sessions happen at least a dozen times a day and until THE CALL finally comes. The frustration, joy, relief and anger over the last few days battle it out for about the first five minutes of THE CALL. If you are very lucky, you can just let the joy show through and he has no idea how silly you have been over it. This goes along until it's time for the next call, and the cycle begins again.

So, maybe there are some that do not have this strange phenomenon, but I daresay that there are thousands that do. I have personally spoken to many who have the same type of experience. For all the well-wishers, if you see a strange, tight look on the face of a serviceman's wife, simply squeeze her shoulder and maybe truly do something kind for her without talking about it. She will talk to you when she is able.

Now it's time to go. I have a call to wait for and my chest is getting tight.