Maybe I don’t write about him enough. I mean, I write about what he does for work and how it impacts our lives, but I don’t write about who Dustin is as a person.
My husband and I went back to visit Dot last week and hear about life
During one of my first depressive episodes when I was younger, I clung to stories of Lincoln and his depression.
There are so many wonderful, quiet stories in communities across the country that never “trend.”
Last week, I couldn’t take it anymore. It was time to clean, purge and reclaim space.
Christmas Day always seemed like the longest day, when in fact it falls soon after the shortest day of the year. This is the benefit of being a kid. All time is warped. Nothing feels quick when you are a kid, except maybe that hour before bedtime.
All of my children have had favorite stuffed animals during their childhoods
Long before the debate over the Affordable Care Act, the military’s own government-run healthcare system has been, for me, a mixed bag.
Of all the household chores and repairs I’ve had to face on my own in Dustin’s absences, the one that I still feared the most, until last week, was using Great Stuff Foam.
If Facebook had a status update option for users’ feelings about the military, mine would be, “It’s complicated.”
I don’t actually believe that spouses are true veterans. Nor do I think Veterans Day is for or about them.
Dustin told me not to write about military spouses forVeterans Day, but I’m going to do it anyway.
When the boys asked what I wanted for my birthday last week, I decided to make it less painful for them. “Just take me to the Star Wars concert performed by the Portland Symphony Orchestra,” I said, “and (wink, wink) that will be a great birthday.”
Lately, the family and I have been doing something really old-fashioned at night. Because the sun is setting earlier, we get in our pajamas right after dinner. I light some scented candles, and sometimes I bake cookies or pop popcorn. And then — here comes the old-fashioned part — watch television together.
These are the times when it’s difficult to write a column. After Theresa’s powerful message last week, I have nothing more to add. And yet I’ve thought of little else, except what she and her boys are going through. I don’t have any funny anecdotes about my own sons’ behavior, and I don’t have specific feelings about the shutdown. Every train of thought leads back to Theresa and Landon and their children.
I regretted last week’s column as soon as it was published. In particular, I regretted that I wrote this: “[O]ur spouse’s jobs don’t become significantly more dangerous just because the U.S. is taking action [in a conflict].” I regretted it because Monday morning, my Navy-wife friend, Theresa, lost her husband, Landon, in a helicopter crash in the Red Sea.
After nearly 17 years of an all-consuming fear of flying that left me grounded, I got on a plane in July with my husband and flew to Washington, D.C. I even flew back without Dustin.
This week, my oldest son, Ford, begins seventh grade. He’s technically been in “middle school” for a year now, but this summer was the first time I saw, with startling frequency, a glimpse of the changes ahead: my first baby is stuck in that painful space between a boy and a man.
You have thoughts about what the military is “like.” All of us do. Typical stereotypes include the following:
I knew this would happen. Indeed, I told you that it would happen. My youngest son, Lindell, went into kindergarten in September as a baby, and he came out in June a little boy.
