You’re Going to Be Deployed to Afghanistan Soon

You’re going to be deployed to Afghanistan soon, and I can’t seem to hold your hand tight enough.

Now when I look at you, I pause and try to process that as our new, inescapable reality. We knew this was coming, but now that the orders are set, I feel this gripping pain inside my chest. My mornings have become steadily more painful as my body begins to wake.

One day soon, you won’t be here. You won’t be here for a very long time. You won’t be here for so much of our lives.

There are so many things I want to say to you, but I don’t even know where to start. I feel the very real yet unspoken conversation happening between us.

I feel time getting lost in the day-to-day, the legal prep, ducks being set in a row, I’s dotted and T’s crossed. Tick, tock goes the military clock.

I’m trying so very hard to be so very strong…for you.

But, you’re leaving. And my whole being is in angst.

While I’m the woman who can rise above all challenges, the woman who can turn any “No” into “Yes,” I cannot seem to alter this course you’re steadily marching down.

I can’t seem to find a way to stop them from taking you.

I can’t seem to figure out a way out of it this time.

I just can’t seem to get us off of this sickening ride.

And all that I am, all that I’m made of, I just can’t seem to accept or process any of it.

“This cannot be happening. This cannot be our reality. It just can’t.”

But it is.

And you, though you love us fiercely, you want to serve.

You want to be able to hold your head up high for having answered “The Call.”

I understand. I truly do. It’s just that…

You’re going to be deployed to Afghanistan soon, and I can’t seem to hold your hand tight enough.