Spin

This weekend was hard. It was a three day weekend; one that is given to military families on our Post to enjoy together. Well, when your family isn't "together" like ours is -- it makes for a really long weekend with lots of voids to fill. 

I decided to treat the kids to a movie. The movie I took them to? "A Dolphin's Tale" -- which would have been great except there was (spoiler alert!) a soldier who comes home from "a war" injured. Well, that got my littlest one going. My oldest two were like, "Oh, we know that won't happen to Daddy, he's just working in an office." Which is what we told them before he left. Did we do the right thing by painting this picture of Daddy sitting behind a desk to quell their fears? I don't know. And that is one of the biggest problems with deployments-- never knowing if what you are telling the kids is the right thing or not. I know my husband has "fudged the truth" to me in past deployments, to keep me from worrying, so I suppose doing the same for the kids is okay.

After the movie, I brought them to watch trains pass by, waving at the conductor and listening to the whistles. I could see on their faces how they wanted to just jump on that train and feel the wind rush on their faces -- to have it take them far away from this life we were living on this long weekend (or, maybe that was just me.) So, instead of throwing everyone on a speeding locomotive, I did the next best thing. I took them to the Carousel Museum across the street. 

They had a blast, listening to the blaring carnival music, riding the horses, bunnies and tea cups. I wandered around while they rode (my almost forty year old stomach cannot withstand the joy of this carousel anymore.) I am always drawn to this one particular horse at the museum. It is wooden, known to be one of the oldest of its kind -- pre-Civil War era. I stared at it, thinking of how many wars this horse has seen. How many soldier's kids have ridden on its back - and out of those countless kids, how many of their Daddies made it back home.

Later that night, my oldest asked me why Daddy had to do a job that didn't make us rich. I tried to explain the difference between a calling and a job. And that Daddy's particular calling doesn't exactly make big bucks. I tried to explain why being a soldier for nearly 26 years is something honorable, courageous and worthy. But to an 8 year old whose life dream right now is to own a DS, honor and courage don't mean much. I hope someday he realizes that my husband's job meant more to our family- our country- than a lot of other jobs that pay a lot more. I hope someday he realizes that honor doesn't buy you DS's, but it does fill one with pride and self worth. 

I suppose someday he will come to realize that being a military kid of a deployed Daddy is also is a job of honor and pride. Because while everyone else is on a trip as a "whole family" and we are "just" watching dolphins try to swim with no tail, trains ride by with no seats for us, and carousels spin with antique horses who have seen many wars through wooden eyes -- we are making our way through this deployment with courage.

Just no DS.