My friend Ness' husband is home on R&R. What a wonderful opportunity to get a break from the stress of a deployment for him and his family. However, I've been through R&R during a one year deployment. Those few weeks that you get to see your loved one is the best thing in the world. That one last hug, that one last kiss....... that one last look into their eyes.
It's all drowned in a cloud of knowing. Knowing that in just a few short days it's all going to come to an end again and you'll go through a painful goodbye, once again. Everyday they are home, you dread the day that approaches, all too fast, when they have to leave again.
J is due back from his deployment in just 8 weeks, about 60 days. I can do two months standing on my head, holding both kids. But I know the day he comes home will be bittersweet. You are so amazingly over the moon to see your loved one again, safe on our soil. What you also know, in the back of your mind, is that it wont be your last homecoming. That in the months to come, you'll be saying goodbye, again. I know that in November of next year, my DH could deploy yet again. I know without a doubt that if he is still in the military he will deploy again in the next two years. I know I'll having to say goodbye, yet again.
What do you do when you know you'll have to go through a long, terrifying deployment again?? Take it one day at a time and enjoy every single day you have with them. You try not to take things for granted. We can be in the middle of a giant fight, even when he's deployed, and we still say 'I love you' every time we end a phone call or chat. I know it may be the last time I get to say it and if nothing else, he wont ever have a doubt in his mind how I feel about him.
Even though it is bittersweet, I would give ANYTHING for my husband to have R&R (he doesn't get to come home on a 'break' and I haven't seen him since early March). It may be painful knowing that he has to leave again in a few short days, but those you have together are simply amazing.
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