applepie

Time just seems to sort of move along, but there is no realization that it is going by so quickly. Hours, days, weeks, and months have flown by, and I'm unable to stop their quickening progress. Six weeks was the amount of time I had left here with my husband. Only six weeks of living together with our children. Only six weeks to gather memories of love and caring to sustain us when we are apart. There were only six weeks to hope that my little girl will share some more of her firsts with us together as a family instead of separated with only a phone to fill her Daddy's presence in our house. Only six weeks, and one has already passed us by too fast.

Why is it that when you wish for time to go more slowly, to offer some reprieve from its grueling pace, it refuses to relent? I wish that there were a way to make it stop. Some way that I could make the next five weeks go more slowly so that my children can be filled with happy memories of our time. Memories that we can share and talk over so that it will not be as difficult for them to be separated from their father for such a long time. I wish I could make time stand still so that my daughter would be old enough to remember her father when we are back together as a family. At four my son understands some of what is happening, but he has yet to understand how badly he is going to miss hid daddy. Victoria is only about 14 months old, and I know that after a few weeks she'll have no memory of her dad at all. It pains me to know the look of sorrow that will come across my husband's eyes when she will treat him as a stranger during the time he can steal to come and visit. He knows that it will happen, but I also know that it will hurt him just the same. I watched him go through it with my son at about the same age when he left on deployment. Garrick was almost two when he returned home to us, and it took him a month or so to warm up to his dad again. I fear it may be worse with Victoria, because she does not react well to change or strangers. We've a lot of both coming our way.

I'll selfishly admit that it isn't only my children that I want the time for. I want time to spend with the man I love. I want to be able to gather better memories close when I'm alone at night. He's been on a day shift schedule for the first time in months this week, and it made me notice that I can't remember the last time we went to bed together. I don't remember the last time we cuddled on the couch and watched a movie or even when we last just sat talking and playing a game. There's been little time in life for any of these things lately, and mostly we see the other as they are going. I see him as he's off to work during the week, and then I kiss him goodbye on the weekends when I'm off to work. Even if we have a day together, we're on completely different schedules so simple things like spending the night together don't really happen too often.

It's all slipping away much more quickly that I want, and I fear it is only going to get worse as each week passes. I know to some, five weeks sounds like a lot. For me, however, the last two years have gone by in a blink, and this seems to be doing the same. I only hope that the 8 1/2 months we will spend apart is going to move as fast. That would be a blessing to both me and my children whom I know are going to suffer from the long time apart.

Meg