It's That Time of Year Again

October, I love fall. I love the smell of it, everything about fall and October always starts fall for me. In 2011 in 29 Palms October was the month that no longer represented fall for me. It represented homecoming from one of the toughest deployments I was ever close to. I say that because as a spouse during this deployment I was all in. One day I was doing the dishes and my husband came home and said, "Hey babe, would you want to be the advisor on the command team?" and I, having no idea what that would mean said, "sure" I really don't want to go in to the deployment that year, if you are interested you can go to the archives and read my blog from 2011. It started in April and it ended in October. But for me and the other spouses that made up the family readiness team of 3/4 during that 7 months our bonds were formed and that time cemented us together forever. Being an advisor during a tough deployment means you are privy to everything, every PCR (Casualty Report), every thing. You are not to talk about them with others because of PII, you are pretty much just walking around with knowledge you can't share and it hurts to know that others in your battalion are hurting and you can't reach out unless they ask for help or you know them personally. I was fortunate enough to know some of our fallen families enough to be able to do whatever I could to help, some of our wounded, but really, what can you do? What words can you say? What is there to make any of that better? All you can do is be there, just be there, some times in silence, not crying, it's not your pain, it belongs to them, it's selfish to make it about you, you have to stay strong, for them..they don't need to comfort you at this time, that isn't their job. I have not one single regret about not one single day, not one single tear shed in my car on the way home from a funeral, from the hospital, alone in my room. But it's always this time in October, this time when they came home, except for those 5 ...those 5 Marines we think about all the time, and those still fighting, those missing limbs and those families, those amazing families with grace unprecedented, every October.