dependencedayessay

July 4th, Independence Day, has me thinking about all of the dependants
of our active military now shouldering home life alone. I know a little
something about that, but just a little. My husband is a deployed
American solider. More accurately, he is ‘deployed-light,’ my invented
term for Jason’s Homeland Security mission. Attached to the 148th
Fighter Wing in Duluth, Minnesota, he secures the F-16 jets that
scramble above the Upper Midwest. A good 150 miles away from our
home, this job didn’t even exist in a pre-911 world.

It’s a really good gig; “no sand in the boots,” as they say. On most
weekends he’s able to come home and yet, shamed by all my
advantages: I struggle. It is unseemly to complain when my solider is not
in Baghdad or Fallujah, but instead stationed in a Minnesota port town.
My friend, Gina, compares my attitude to a double pneumonia diagnosis
and being joyful that it isn’t cancer. “But,” she warns me, “You still have
pneumonia.”

Our oldest child barely held up three fingers for her age when Jason left:
add to her a six-month-old baby, a 60lb Rotweiller mutt, and self-
employment. 24/5 they’re all mine.

Seeing the uniform, the baby tearfully seeks my arms and will remain
there for the next five days; one parent down and determined not to let
go of this one. Sometimes he can be coaxed into his highchair if it’s
sprayed full of whipped cream, but generally I struggle through everyday
chores with a 22lb human on my hip.

Cooking has been reduced to a parade of frozen, processed foods with
“Healthy” on the label to ease my culpability. In my imagination we have
our own culinary show: One Finger Cooking with Milo. Pull back film to
expose plum pudding, dance to Fleetwood Mac. Stir. Repeat.

We walk past, but not into my home office. My toddler trails behind us,
questioning ‘why’ all the way down to the sub-molecular level. I want to
jump on these ‘teachable moments’ and provide nourishing explanations
to her queries with books, dioramas, perhaps an interpretive dance – I
decline, in favor of an empty dishwasher. She expresses her hurt
uniquely; nothing says ‘I’m angry’ like a poop behind the couch.

Some weekends my husband can’t leave post and we’ll go the better part
of a month without seeing him. My standards become a limbo stick
begging the question, “how low can they go.” Three wipeys make the
children “clean,” dust bunnies become beloved family pets, and in lieu
of finding a sitter, I cut my own hair.

Hiding from late winter at a Barnes & Noble story hour, my toddler
refuses to leave. She tears off through the mega-store disrobing as she
runs. After a scuffle, I manage one under each arm: the baby,
overheating in his bunting, is red-faced and crying, Belle is a swinging
tirade of a near-naked girl. She is shrieking with such intensity that she
vomits on my pants; the same sweat pants I had on yesterday –and then
slept in.

Dashing to the minivan, I am spotted: it’s the perfectly together childless
woman. Her attractively made-up face is horrified; clearly she would
never allow this spectacle. And before I can restrain myself I say with a
smile, “Feel free to talk about me at dinner” and push on to the van. At
home we puppy pile on the bed and nap it all away.

In my former life, I worked with wanna-be Senators and Governors,
taking my place at the strategy table; now I can’t even decide where the
swing set will be up in the yard. It is as though the confident woman I
have always been has been deployed as well, and in my state of
independence I have become: “the
wiper.” It’s a title derived from what I do most -wipe things. High chair,
floors, bottoms, noses, counter, repeat. I do not say it with scorn or as a
chore beneath me; I say it with the earnestness of a woman defeated by
the task.

When my soldier does return for a weekend I am flushed with emotion. I’
m so happy to see him; I rub my head in his chest - until I remember and I
then morph. “Vacation Cat” takes over; the pissed off pet left at home
with only the toilet lid up and some errant Friskies tossed across the
floor. Don’t get me wrong; I’m thrilled to see him, but being abandoned
for days on end has left me raw. With a brisk twitching of my tail, I am off.

It is no wonder that the U.S. Army is spending some 2 million dollars on
“marriage enrichment" programs. The strain, even in this domestic
scenario, is palatable. But by Saturday morning, bitchy kitty is
magnanimous, granting Jason “time served,” and I again relish my
husband’s presence. The joy though is imperfect, living as one does in
Monday’s long shadow.

Initially, I couldn’t think about my family’s military service in terms of
“sacrifice,” feeling that the word was too big, meant for those on un-
photographed flights into Dover and their bereaved families. With more
effort and less sleep I thought I could take up the slack, still be a “laid-off
Bush entrepreneur” and parent capably, if not always with grace and
winning style points.

But like packing a pound of glass marbles into an 8oz cup; something has
to spill out. Sacrifice, even a far lesser one, has casualties and I must
choose which colorful orbs to pursue and let others go lost –maybe
somewhere behind the couch.