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DEPLOYMENT
PRE-DURING-POST
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A few days ago I wrote about the fear that seeks to grip our hearts in a deployment. That fear can very easily drive us into a deep, dark hole. It is the fear that we will never see our mate again. It is the fear that our spouse will never come home. And it is the fear that the next knock on the door will be the one we dread. And yet, when we are surrounded by fear, hope remains.
Even When There Is Fear, Hope Remains
By Tim Blake posted June 2010
Hope always stays nearby, waiting for a chance to comfort our hearts. It sits quietly and whispers into our spirits that all is not lost, all will be well. And when the days are darkest, hope quietly speaks the kindest words into our souls: "you are not alone."
When I wrote my last blog about fear, it was indeed a very dark day. All of the painful thoughts of the past 10 months had come rushing back to the forefront of my mind. Thoughts of doom, fear, despair. "What if" and "what will I do" were swirling around in my thoughts like debris in a hurricane. Even in the days that followed, with messages from my wife that all were well and that the situation was completely under control, the tempest continued.
Now, there are times in our lives when the words of others can help bring us out of the depths of despair. This, for me, was not one of those times. No matter what anyone said to me, it didn't make the slightest difference. In fact, it only tended to make me angry. Why? Simple. None of the people around me could understand. None of them will ever know the fear of having your spouse in harm’s way and possibly in imminent danger. To me, everything they were saying, regardless of their care or motive, was like empty words and gestures. You can't help me because you can't know or understand my pain.
Sometimes, though, you need to see someone else dealing with the pain and sorrow you feel in order to see the hope that is always present in these darkest of times. That happened to me today. I was at the Pre-K graduation of my daughter. Towards the end, her teacher stood up and asked the assembled parents to please pray for the three parents who weren't at the graduation because they were deployed. After 10 months, I was thankful for the words, but it really didn't have any impact or deeper meaning to me. After a while, you simply become numb to stuff like that. But while she was talking about these three parents (one being my wife) I noticed a lady sitting a row over from me crying. Her husband had just left for Afghanistan. That's when I reconnected with hope.
You see, for the first time, I was able to see someone going through what I've been dealing with and understand her pain, grief, and fear completely. I knew EXACTLY what she was going through. As the ceremony ended, I walked over to her (I knew her already in passing as she has a child in my daughter's class), put my hand on her shoulder, looked her in the eye and simply said, "You are not alone." She thanked me and hugged me. She told me that her husband's deployment wasn't going to be nearly as long as my wife's and that she couldn't imagine what I've been going through. I simply brushed that aside and told her again, "I just wanted you to know that you aren't alone in this." Then I walked away, and I knew that there was hope for us as well. That simple sharing with someone else served as a reminder to me that I am not alone either, that I'm not fighting these fears and anxieties by myself.
If there is a take away for us in these deployments, it is the realization of the awesome responsibility that we have to stand shoulder to shoulder with those who are struggling with that inner battle against fear. It isn't enough for us to simply get by or survive. How easy it would be for us to simply ignore those we see hurting and trembling because their spouse is at war and simply lick our own wounds. You and I must help our fellow spouses stand tall and support each other instead of retreating into our own dark chambers of despair. Because, believe it or not, bringing hope to someone else brings hope back to you.
For the past 10 months I've lived in a place where there's been no one who could truly understand my battles. The sense of isolation has been extreme at times. I didn't truly realize what it looked like on the outside until I saw that lady. Now I know. And at that moment I realized the most important thing I could say to her was that she wasn't alone. It HAS to become our mission to make sure every spouse in a deployment knows they aren't alone in this fight. We have the ability to look them in the eye and say with every ounce of conviction that we completely understand what they are going through. We CAN take them by the hand and walk with them down the dark path of a deployment. We've been walking it for a while. We know the way home. They have to know they aren't alone in the fears that they feel. We can and must be the little voice that rises out of the darkness and says, "Fear not my friend, for you are not alone."
Tim Blake is a stay at home dad raising four beautiful children. "I am the proud spouse of an Army Major. I do my best to keep up with the kids and all of their activities. I enjoy playing the bass and the occasional bass guitar building project. You can follow me on twitter if you so desire @ArmySpouse007
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