Last year a couple months before Christmas, Dh left on one of those last minute gotta-run-babe-not-sure-when-I’ll-be-back-love-you deployments. As Christmas came, we had settled into a routine. And while I had made some purposeful plans for the kids so we wouldn’t sit on our butt and feel sorry for ourselves (volunteering for Santa’s Anonymous, Food Bank drives, etc), as the day approached none of us were in the mood. Then on the 23rd my 12 year old crawled into bed with me in the early morning and said “I don’t feel like having a Christmas where we pretend it’s okay Dad isn’t here.” I thought about that a long time. This wasn’t the kid’s first deployment by a long shot, they knew how it worked. I couldn’t make Dad appear, the hard truth he was a world away and we could pray our hearts out but there would be no Christmas surprises with him under the tree. He wouldn’t be there. But did that mean we had to have a crappy Christmas? Were we obligated to have less of a day because he wasn’t there? It was then I realized that we had options. In fact, there were things that we could do BECAUSE Dh wasn’t with us. Not just what we could do ‘still’ but what we could do INSTEAD. Dh isn’t a fan of big cities or crowds, so while I’d always wanted to go to NYC, he wasn’t so keen. New York City also terrifies me. So there’s that. I mean…
So there’s an event coming and you’re looking forward to it! Awesome! I love having something on the horizon that makes me happy. But wait? Is your spouse in the military? Then lets back it up there a second. This is going to take some planning. I am 100% convinced that when Dh has a course or exercise coming up, the powers that be look at the roster of soldiers on it and say ‘find out their spouse’s birthdays/anniversaries/vacations and see how many you can cram into the time we have to plan for.’ Dh assures me no one has the time and/or real desire to pull this off. I disagree. But that’s not the point. The point is, if you have an event coming up that you’d like to enjoy, you may need to make a few plans so you can really be sure it turns out. Plan to be alone for it. Dh absolutely hates the fact that I plan literally every aspect of our lives as though he’s not home. But you know what? Then if he is home, I’m super thrilled, and if he’s not home, I’m far less homicidal (please note I said less). So it’s win/win. 2. Plan and 2nd, 3rd and 4th date. Say it’s date night. Or a romantic weekend. Or say, your honeymoon. Those are things you have to plan his being home for, I understand. So go ahead and have a backup plan. Or 5. You think I’m kidding? I know people on their 4th wedding date. 3. Learn to love the last minute getaway. I loath advance planning…
Today I went to a kid’s Remembrance Day service the day before the stat holiday tomorrow here in Alberta. Dh came, in uniform. This is something he does the odd year he’s in town because it makes my kids unbelievably happy and he’s a good dad. Even though he looks about as comfortable as a very polite bull in a very loud china shop. And they did all the things we do at Remembrance Services. They read “In Flanders Fields.” They sang a song. We sang O Canada listened to the Last Post and we had a moment of silence. Then the kids laid wreaths. And during it all, it was loud. The school goes from preschool age all the way to grade 8. The young kids are just that; young. They whispered until the whispers grew louder. They fidgeted. They fussed. And teachers, they tried diligently to teach them to stop. To make them be quiet and respectful. It only sometimes worked. I remembered then those days when I had very small ones. And I would stand, on my own usually, in the back of a crowded gym on Remembrance Day at 11am. And I’d bounce and I’d feed and I’d beg and I’d do literally everything physically possible to keep my babies quiet. I usually failed. One time I got up with a fussing baby, and I went to leave, not wanting his muted wailing to interrupt the ceremony. Just outside the door an older Veteran grabbed my arm and he said ‘let him cry. We’re still glad you’re here.’ And then, with Dh a world away,I cried too. Today my youngest son and…
“Our small group is going paintballing” he tells me. “I saw that” I reply, hoping to end the conversation with my disinterest. “I signed us up.” “I hope” I sigh, “that by us, you mean you.” “You’re coming!” He laughs “it’s fun, you’re going to love it.” We’ve been married almost 15 years. He’s spent well over 2 of those years at war, as a combat soldier. We were just 20 the first time he left. The first 3 deployments happened almost like clockwork, 2 years apart. He just returned from his 4th this spring. He is pulling out clothes in the morning “we can both wear a pair of my combats.” I stare at him “uh… you realize you have 50lbs on me.” “It’s not a fashion show.” He’s holding them up to me. “They cinch. Paint washes off them well.” “I didn’t sign up for this” I huff while I pull them on. I feel like those first deployments happened quickly and I didn’t have a lot of time to process. Dh doesn’t talk about his time away much. I was overwhelmed at home with the kids while he was gone each time. By the middle of the third, it was sinking in harder. The casualties were close to home. I spent the last day of Dh’s 3rd deployment at a funeral for a member of his squadron. It hadn’t been the first. I don’t know why the fear hadn’t caught me before as…
After a few months that just seems to grip a choke-hold on the military community that Dh is a part of, I was feeling a little lost and didn’t seem to have anything useful to write. What I did see, all around me, were soldiers and veterans from Dh’s Regiment banding together. Message groups, phone calls, texts, drop ins. They seemed to track down everyone and touch base with honest messages that may have all said something different but meant the same thing: “Talk to me. We just can’t go through this again.” So when Ariel over at PMQ For 2 offered to write something for me while I got my #### together, I loved the memory that the post that she sent invoked. In 2001, Dh and I were teenagers getting married. We had an offer for a tiny little PMQ right before the wedding and we needed to move all our stuff there. But I had never lived in Edmonton and Dh had only arrived at the unit less than a year before. We were driving in the U-Haul and moving it all ourselves on a weekday afternoon. I was dreading trying to help Dh carry our meager hand me down furniture into our new home. When we pulled up, there were soldiers there from Dh’s unit, in uniform, sitting on the front step waiting for us. “Took you long enough! I was starting to think I shouldn’t have bothered getting them all a short day today!” said the Master Corporal of Dh’s troop. And the group of them sauntered over to the back of the truck with hardly a word, waiting to help unload. Dh hadn’t wanted…
When I got engaged, I was 18 years old. I lived with my parents and I was in my first year of college. My fiance and I already shared a bank account and the tiny wage he received as a new recruit in the Canadian Forces was deposited there. I used it to pay my parents for the outrageous phone bill we racked up with collect calls in a world before cell phones. A year later I was married and I went from being my parent’s dependent to being my husband’s. The internet is full of articles that tell me why I should be more than a ‘dependent’. Why being a dependent is bad, disenfranchising and demeaning. I am told that I should be more, that I AM more. And I am. I’m a wife. I’m a parent, and a special needs parent. A friend. An advocate. I’m a writer. An employee. A student. But I’m also a soldier’s dependent. This week, that soldier marks 16 years in the military. Back when the phrase “if the army wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one” was far more common, and our community was much quieter. Now we have a voice, but the sentiment is the same. ‘Dependent’ is a bad word, used as an insult or a joke. But I feel maybe that’s because we don’t consider what being a dependent means. Being his ‘dependent’ has taught me more about independence than I could have possibly learned on my own. Being a dependent has meant that I moved away from my family and friends as soon as I got…
The following is a loose transcript of the 2nd half of my key note speech at this year’s Military Family Services conference. I’m so grateful for the opportunity I had to share at the conference and hope that it was even a little successful in what I set out to do, which was only share a story in the hopes it would get people thinking. I’m just one family and have only my own voice. Thanks so much for letting it be heard. After sharing my story, I think it’s important that we first understand that I am coming from just one family. We are not special; there are thousands just like us out there. But we all come from slightly different perspectives. The Canadian Forces has many different trades, jobs and postings that will all lend itself to very different experiences. Each military unit has its own unique culture. And each family within it, their own story. Blended families. Dual services families. Same sex partnerships, families with or without children. We can run the gamut of religious, political and social diversity. Looking at us all, what then is our goal? Are we looking for temporary fixes or long term resiliency? Are we giving tools or band aids? If we are, in fact, trying to teach families resiliency, how do we do that? Well, I can say that in our story, I know what didn’t work. There were times that I received more services than others. One deployment, I even received help from the Regiment by the way of a driver to take me to appointments that I was unable to drive to for medical reasons. Which was amazing, and needed at the time as we were new and I…
As I prepard to move across the country, the fact my kids will have to start school one month late, and that Monster will have one less month to familiarize himself with his educational assistant, with a new school, with new rules and environment, has certainly reminded me that there is always the one extra little complicated factor and for some of us, it’s our Special Needs kids at posting season. So today, I have Meg from Milkids Education Consulting to give us some insight on how you can make the most of education for your special needs child. Moving is challenging under the best of circumstances, but add in moving with a child with special needs and things can be complicated. And moving with the military AND a kiddo with special education services…woooo boy! Before you move The first thing that you should do is to contact your current school office to let them know about the upcoming move. It is best to contact them several ways: phone, email, and in person. This way they have lots of notice about the change in educational placement, and you are making sure that your concerns are not overlooked. The end, or beginning, of a school year is especially busy and stressful with new enrollments and disenrollments occurring daily. When you contact the school, you should request copies of the following items: ● IEP/IPP, current and updated ● all formal evaluations, including district, provincial, and national assessments ● all report cards/progress reports for the last academic year ● all medical records, if any exist You might also want to contact your child’s team of teachers and specialists. Let them know how much they have helped you over the last year(s), and that you will be sad to leave…
I get asked frequently for ‘lists’. Which is funny because I am a terrible list maker and you guys have way more faith in me than anyone should. I frequently grocery shop without a list (gasp!). I make lists and forget where I put them. I don’t complete them. I don’t even write them. All of the above. But, well, I have done the Deployment mambo more than a few times, and I’ve learned from trial and error that there are some things you just DO before they’re gone to make your life 110% easier. Did that life experience remind me to winterize his motorcycle when he left on an immediate reaction deployment for 6 months last fall? No. Ask the mechanic who just charged me my firstborn to fix Dh’s motorbike this spring. Sometimes, shit happens and you can’t get everything done. You don’t have time to evaluate what you need to finish before they are gone. They just leave. This is why many of these things should be talked about now, if not yesterday. Life happens and it pays to be ready for it. But many times you have some warning. Or, if they are posted to a High Readiness unit, or their unit goes on Immediate Reaction, you can just get stuff done as a ‘just in case’. That is usually our scenario. Not that any of that saved the Virago’s carburetor. Either way, this is me giving you what you were looking for, the best way I know how: Before you read this, you should go to your MFRC. Or call them. Ask if they already have one of these. I’m sure theirs is…
Today I had planned to post something funny about deployment checklists. Then yesterday, my Facebook feed changed. And Regimental crests with black bands replaced profile pictures as the tributes started. There were meet ups for drinks and quiet beers at homes and bars across the country where glasses clinked and memories spilled into the silence. Where soldiers sat and processed what it feels like when the goodbye comes suddenly and long after the firefight. I came home late from work and Dh had our dehumidifier in pieces on the counter, focused purposely intently on the job in front of him. I walked up silently and hugged him and he shrugged away. “not until the kids are in bed.” When the house was quiet we opened a couple drinks and sat on the couch, giving a wordless toast in front of mindless TV that served as a distraction from all the “if only I…” This isn’t the first time. There’s a lot of yellow ribbons out there. Far more so when we are fighting, even among those who argue the latest wars there are few who would say they don’t support our troops. Since the beginning of the war in 2002, more Canadian Forces personnel have died at their own hand than were killed in combat. We are quick to respond to the death of those in the line duty -whether they be military, police, firefighters, paramedics, etc – with pretty ribbons on our cars and our clothes and our social media. And that’s sometimes the best way we can see in grief to show our loss is felt. I challenge myself and anyone else to put our money where our ribbons are. And our time. And…
