Stage 8: First Steps

First time standing

             None of us remember our first steps. Yes, we have home videos and pictures, but our parents or those that were around us at the time that we took those first remarkable steps will remember that feeling of accomplishment for us. On Monday, March 26, 2012, I witnessed the love of my life take his first steps for the second time. At first, my eyes started tear up when I saw him stand and start walking, but then I started to laugh. I swear to God that I love Joe with all my heart, but he looked just like Bambi when he started to walk. His legs were wobbly and his steps were small then big, big then small. Even though I couldn’t help but laugh, that was truly one of the proudest moments in my life. All the heartache, confusion, days of waiting, and seeing him go through so much pain in those first few weeks seemed to just fade in my memory.   

            Joe doesn’t show his emotions often, but I could see in his face that at that very moment that he stood and walked that he was the happiest he has been in a couple months. He was glowing. Everything about his posture showed how happy he was. I hadn’t seen him that happy since October when we saw each other for the first time in over two years.    Since then, he has been more loving and affectionate towards me, which of course I absolutely love! I think that milestone really affected everything about out daily living; we wake up happier, we kiss each other in public; we eat dinner sitting by each other rather than far apart.

First Steps

            My birthday is the 27^th of March, the day after his first steps. I wasn’t expecting much from him in terms of gifts, he hasn’t left base and we both didn't have much time to really think about my birthday. His sister and her friend came down for the week to celebrate with us. It was so nice to see them and have them here to be part of his first steps and my 21^st birthday. I did get the greatest gift from Joe though, his gift was those Bambi-like first steps and on the afternoon of my birthday, we were sitting and having a conversation with Cory in the hallway about our lives here at Walter Reed. It was a random spot, but it was a great time. Towards the end, we started to stand up and get ready to head back to our rooms. Joe pulled me over and put both his hands on my cheeks, which is something that he usually does because I have huge cheeks. This time it was different though, he looked deep into my eyes. He was looking so deep that I could feel him looking for my thoughts within my mind. Then he kissed me on the cheek, nothing more, just a simple kiss on the cheek. It was the perfect moment.

            

Stage 8 in the Journey of Unexpecting the Unexpected

Stage 7: I Miss Afghanistan

My soldier

Joe finally opened up to me today about his anxiety and depressive thoughts. He and his dad had a very long, much needed, conversation this afternoon. I have found that a conversation between two men, especially two military men, often produce more progressive outcomes compared to conversations between a man and a woman. I have countlessly asked Joe to open up to me and let me in on his thoughts, but with his stubborn demeanor, he didn’t. It only took his dad one time saying, “ Joe do this”, for him to open up. These are the times that I wish I were born with a penis, so then when I say, “do this”, and he will actually do what I’m asking.

The conversation between him and I started like this, “ I told my dad why I’ve been feeling so anxious and stuff and told him about how I miss Afghanistan.” The look on my face must have been priceless when I heard the words “ I miss Afghanistan” come out of his mouth. At first I was angry when he said that. Why on Earth would he miss getting shot at each day? Why would he miss not having running water everyday? Why would he miss not having a homemade dinner every night? Why would he miss not waking up next to me every morning? So, instead of asking him those questions right off the bat, I let him continue with his explanation. “ I miss the adrenaline rush of getting shot at. I miss sitting in the brush wondering what is going to happen. I miss my friends the most. I miss going back to the tent after a long day of usually doing stupid stuff and shooting the shit with them afterwards. Ya that is what I miss the most.” So, I asked to continue the flow of his story, “ do you think that would be different if you came home with them at the same time?” (All of his friends came home earlier this month; I am SO glad that they are all reunited with their families and friends). “Ya, probably. I didn’t get the same welcome home festivities that they did. I told them that I would be there with them and I wasn’t.” He continued telling me all the things he missed about the war stricken country that he lived in for so long. I tried to put in my input, but he just kept letting his feelings flow out and just sat and listened to the story of my soldier.

      This story and explanation on his feelings didn’t go the way I thought it would. I thought that his feelings revolved around his physical condition and the future of his career. I never once thought that it was that he missed Afghanistan. The experiences on the battlefield and the bond between Joe and his fellow warriors are something that I will never feel, so I think that is why I never considered the possibility of him missing the place that sent him back broken.

Joe and his friends on Christmas

            When he was finished and we went back up to our room, a friend of his that was injured late last year came and our new neighbor Cory, came by the room to visit us. He is also a below the knee amputee on his right leg and broke his femur in the same leg like Joe. Watching and listening to the conversation between two soldiers is something that I have come to really enjoy. Half of the terms they use, I don’t understand or know what they mean, but it is a special language of their own. Talking about being blown up and the struggles they face as wounded warriors gives me insight to what is really going for Joe that I don’t see. I don’t talk a lot when Joe and Cory are conversing, mainly because half the words that come out of their mouth I don’t know the meaning of and because the moments that they are have are only obtainable by soldiers.

            The things I see and the people I meet here on a daily basis continue to amaze me. Before Joe told me his story today, he and I met a young couple outside our building and once again, the two soldiers started up a conversation. Joe explained his situation and injuries, then the other told his. “I’m the only one that survived when I got hit.” My heart sank right when he said it. “One of my guys was decapitated. The other two were basically torn in half and the guy next to me smashed his head.” The words came out of his mouth almost with ease. I didn’t know what to say to this man, so I didn’t say anything at all. 

Joe and his friend Nate 

            The effects of this war were totally unknown to me before Joe and I got back together. I didn’t know about Walter Reed. I knew that soldiers were losing limbs, but I didn’t know everything else that encompassed what it all totally meant and the stories behind the individuals that it happened to. During the day, I see soldiers around the hospital and the apartment building with one remaining limb, scars all over their bodies, carrying their prosthetics limbs on the back of their wheelchairs, falling during their physical therapy tasks, and struggling to do the things that I do on a daily basis. At first, I filled my mind with sad, depressing thoughts for these soldiers and felt so bad for them and their plights. Then as the days went by and I really looked at the whole picture, I realized that most of these soldiers also have smiles on their face and the determination to get back on their metal legs after falling.

            Joe missing Afghanistan is something that I will never fully understand, but I am not a soldier. What he has seen and the experiences he had in Afghanistan are things that I will never see or experience first hand, but what I do see and experience is what it has sent back everyday. Before Walter Reed, I thought that I knew what I was getting into by reuniting with my soldier, but in the past couple weeks I have realized that I have only just begun the process of understanding.

Stage 7 in the Journey of Unexpecting the Unexpected. 

Stage 6: Rejuvenation

Before coming to Maryland, I never realized how much I love staring at a full moon: the glow against the dark night sky. The other night, after I got done doing a couple days worth of dishes, a load of laundry, and gave Joe his pills; I walked towards our bedroom and I saw a full moon perfectly centered in the middle of our window. I froze and stared out my window like I did when I was young and dreamed of being an astronaut. My mind went completely blank. I stopped thinking about the chaos that had become my life.

 Peace.

 The days before I stared at the moon, I felt stuck in the dark. I was physically here, but my mind was in a thousand different places. Am I doing a good job? Am I the best person for Joe right now? Will I be able to last? Can I do this? Those are few of the many questions that crossed my mind. There were moments where I just sat. I did absolutely nothing, but sit on my a** is my uncomfortable chair in the living room and try to wrap my head around everything that was happening.

This situation has changed both Joe and I in more ways that I can describe. We had been apart for so long that living with each other has had awkward moments and often times feel like we are at the dating stage all over again. I sometimes feel like I am living and in love with a complete stranger. We are able to communicate with each other face to face rather than over Facebook or Skype, which has been our life over the past year. Now, I can feel his skin against mine, I can run my hand through his hair, I can hear his heart beat when I lay my head on his chest, but what the war has sent back to me hasn’t quite become my Joe yet. Before I stared at the moon that night, I had the thought in the back of my mind that he wasn’t going to come back to me…ever.

Over the next couple days, signs of him coming back started happening. He started asking for kisses, when I hugged him he hugged me back, he thanked me for bringing him a ginger ale. The lines of communication are reappearing in our lives. We have been laughing and joking with each other like we used to when we were love-stuck 17 year olds.

Everything was slowly starting to come back, but there are moments when it looks like we are going to fall apart again and that distant stranger will be back in my life. I would freak out when that fear of the stranger struck my body and I would dart my head in every direction for an escape route like a bird. I would walk away from him and he would usually stay outside for a minute. I know it was completely wrong of me, but I was in completely flight mode. I flew away. I just wanted to run far, far away from everything. I was so ashamed by the time I got back to the apartment that I would just sit on the couch and wait for him to get back with my head hung like a puppy that just made a mess. When he would get back, I would be silent with my tail between my legs and not say anything to him, afraid that I would invite the stranger back into my life.  The awkward silence would pass when either her or I would comment on the stupidity of the people on whatever TV show was on at the moment and the fear of the stranger coming back would start to fade away.  

The happiest moment of my life: the first time seeing him in 2 years. 

I know most have you have seen the movie The Notebook. Now, I don’t want to say that Joe and I’s relationship is exactly like that of Ali and Noah’s in the story, but we have similarities. We fight all the time about stupid stuff. We are pretty much inseparable. We love each other with all our hearts. We were separated unwillingly by uncontrollable reasons and found our way back to each other when that never seemed possible. You know the part where Ali is in the nursing home because of her Alzheimer’s and how Noah stands by her side even though he really has nothing wrong with him? Well, I am just a woman sticking by my man’s side even though he sometimes is a complete stranger to me because he is my home and heart.

“That's my sweetheart in there. Wherever she is, that's where my home is.”

–Noah, from The Notebook

I have to remind myself that he is in there still; I am just working on getting him out and trying my best to get him physically fixed. We got him out of the immobilizer this week and are starting to get bend back into his left leg, which is a total relief. He is gaining more degrees in bend in his right leg every day and has been told in about a month, he will be able to start bearing weight on his legs and begin the process of learning how to walk again.

The moon is now my sign rejuvenation. Its glow shows me that even though things look hopeless, there is light that breaks through the dark.

Stage 6 in the Journey of Unexpecting the Unexpected. 

Stage 5: Dear John

             This morning I decided to watch the movie Dear John. Stupid idea. Why I decided to watch that movie this morning is something I’m still trying to figure out. I had never seen the movie before this morning and thought “hey, I have the morning to myself because Joe is still sleeping and I am tired of watching the Discovery channel or war films; a good chick flick sounds nice.” Of course I chose the tearjerker about a war torn couple. It stars Channing Tatum (John) as a special forces soldier and Amanda Seyfried (Savannah) as his girlfriend he meets while on leave. They decide to write each other letters while he is away to stay in contact and keep their relationship alive while thousands of miles away from each other. He tells her that he has one more year left in the Army and that he will be done after that year. He promises her that he will be back. Then September 11^th happened and changed everything for them.

While watching this film, I thought a lot about my life with Joe. When they hugged and kissed each other before he left, I remembered how it felt when I left New Jersey: our last hug and kiss for months. When he returned, I remembered how it felt to see him in uniform in the airport for the first time in two years. When he told her he was going back, I remembered the last Skype conversation we had before he left for Afghanistan after his R&R. When he got shot, I remembered how it felt to get the 5 am phone call from Marissa. Overall, this film was a reminder of my life up to this point within the first 45 minutes. I cried for the first half of the movie because I knew the exact feelings that they were trying to portray.

Granted a MAJOR difference in the film and my life was that she eventually broke things off with him, which was a turning point for me in the film where I no longer enjoyed it and watched the rest of it angry over that fact that she was so stupid. She should have known what she was getting herself into by starting a relationship with a soldier. She had it in her mind that he was going to get out of the Army a year after his leave, but as I have quickly learned the military lifestyle doesn’t always go the way it was supposed to or was planned to. If it went the way it was supposed to and the way I had planned, Joe would be coming back this week in perfect condition. Life doesn’t always go the way as planned, especially in the military.

Savannah didn’t realize what she was getting into. She saw a charming hunk with no shirt on running on the beach with a surfboard. He loved her and she loved him. He comes back to her for a short amount of time after September 11^th before he reenlisted, without telling her that was his intent, she throws a fit and eventually goes with his plan to stay with his guys and return overseas, she had no real choice. The decision is obviously not easy for him either because he wants to be with her just as much as she wants to be with him, but he has his responsibilities to his men, his job, and his country. I wish with all my heart that Joe had stayed with me here instead of going back. I wish with all my heart that Joe never got hurt over there, but I knew what I was getting into and knew that this all was a possibility.

Dear John is a book written by tearjerker extraordinaire Nicholas Sparks and that the film was made primarily to make a profit and make girls across the country cry, but for those of us that live it and wait for our men to come back it was a lot more than that. It was a reminder of what our life is about and the men that we love with all our heart. We write letters and stare at the moon knowing that halfway around the world they are looking at it too. We live our lives not knowing what is going to happen next or if they are going to come home in one piece or at all. We remember our last hug and kiss before they get on the plane knowing that we won’t get that feeling again until that long awaited moment when we finally see them in the airport and all those days spent waiting are only a memory.

Stage five in the Journey of Unexpecting the Unexpected.