Amanda,
You have made me cry, but they are - in a way - "good" tears, the tears that come from understanding, deep in my soul, just how hard it is to be left behind to wait and worry. I empathize as much as anyone without a husband or child of their own over there can.
I have to admit that I was rather smug when I joined this group. I could be an Angel, be patriotic, but not feel the same pain, the same anxiety, as the mom who says good night to a child just getting up a half a world a way to fight the good fight. If there is a knock on the door at 3 AM, it is not going to be a military contingent telling me that my son has died in a war that I prayed for weeks would not happen. After all, none of my children are over there.
I could be "worried" in the same way that I worry about global warming and land mines and the starvation in Darfur. I was separated from it all by a wall of protection because no one I knew, no one I cared about, no one I had any emotional investment in was there. I didn’t risk losing someone I loved.
We adopted a soldier and soon after that, another. I wrote to them, baked them cookies and brownies and blueberry muffins, and sent them soap, and peanuts, and Twizzlers, and body lotion, and soon they weren’t strangers any more. When I packed up toilet paper, and candy, and very personal things like tampons and feminine wipes, this suddenly became very personal to me. I yearned to hear from them, to know more about them. When I shopped for my son in college, I couldn’t buy things for him and not them and vice verse.
Then, one of my soldiers wrote back, and suddenly I wasn't so different from you at all. She wasn’t someone else’s daughter I didn’t even know any longer. She wasn’t an anonymous soldier in a fifteen second sound bite. She had a name, a face, pictures, hopes and dreams, and fears that she confided to me, and just as we had embraced her, she embraced us.
It’s one thing to worry about the polar ice cap melting. It’s another thing to worry about someone who emails me every day, calls me Ma’am, and “my Soldier Mom” and “my Angel Mom”, and wrote this to me just yesterday…. “I thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you have sent!.... THANK YOU AND YOUR FAMILY for considering and taking me in as one of your own. I am humbled. Thank you. Rosa”.
This morning I received this and realized that “tomorrow” is here and she’s gone back out on convoys that get shot at: “You have become such a great friend to me and I hope we keep in touch for a very, very long time...I hope we can meet also! That would be a delight!!!! Well Ma'am….I must get going. I need to pack for tomorrow. We’re leaving early. I should be gone about 10 days. … Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Love, Rosa” Now don't that just tug on the old heart strings.
We adopted two, then a third, and then a fourth. We are foster parents all over again but instead of wiping the tears of a seven year old little boy we later adopted, we are filling our empty nest, nurturing the children of others who have grown up and gone off to fight an unpopular war. And suddenly, your pain is very personal to me and to my husband as well.
I haven't quite figured out the denial thing, but I’m working on it. Even worse for me is having to deal with the Jewish thing…. the inborn ability – no, compulsion – to worry. Like you, Amanda, I fill many lonely hours reading the forums and finding even more soldiers in need of a mother’s touch. I especially love sending cards and an occasional gift box to the “children” of others… a little TLC here, a birthday card there, a post card, a recipe, a Red Sox souvenir. My extended “family” gets larger and larger each day.
A month into this, we have adopted four soldiers and four Marine units and have packed off our first five dozen cookies and three dozen snack packs to the hospital in Balad. Suddenly we are buying and shipping stew and chili, pasta and meat sauce for sixteen to sixty, and our grocery bills are back where they were when our Brady Bunch was still all at home. Our home is a beehive of activity where friends come to bake, wrap, pack, and write.
Last night, while I was choosing birthday presents (practical socks and impractical nightgowns for Rosa) and Halloween presents for a four year old to mail to Iraq for Becca to mail back to her little boy, my husband was buying four dozen pairs of black boot socks for Marines whose names we don’t even know and 34 DVD’s to stuff into holiday sacks that are going all over Iraq and Afghanistan. And instead of chips or popcorn, he bought nearly two full cases – all they had – of salt water taffy because “It’s so New England and these guys are gonna love this!” When we got to the cash register and the clerk asked us if we realized we had 11 of the same movie, we looked at each other and giggled. How blessed we are that we can buy 11 of the same movie and not have to give it a second thought.
I embarked down this path full of altruism and idealism, but without any clue as to where it would take me. I looked at the time commitment (I am severely disabled and have limited energy) and the financial commitment and set limits for myself. My ability to “adopt” was no longer limited by the number of bedrooms and bathrooms we had, but by my fragile health and meager energy reserves. Two hours a day I would write and wrap and pack and ship. Then I would close up shop for the day and move on to other things, nap time being one of them.
Somewhere along the way, I discovered the one thing I had never once considered; the investment of my heart was not something I could predict, limit, or control.
I’ve been a birth mom, a foster mom, an adoptive mom, and now I’m an Angel mom. The mom part might be different but the love part is all the same.
Thank you, Amanda, for giving us all permission - and a role model - for tears.
Cathy
15 September 2006
An Angel Shares Her Heart
Angel Cathy wrote this on our message boards in a thread where someone asked if anyone else worries about their soldier. This totally sums up what being an "angel" is like.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Wow. I cannot say anything more ...
And, not in a selfish way, but I wish this was around when I served. It truly helps those on BOTH sides to get to know what is really going on.
Angels are just that, angels!
(thanks for doing what you do, Laurie!)
Fix4rso, thanks for your kind words. I am humbled. And you are correct, it does help those of us forced to helplessly watch this happen a lot.
I was against this war from the outset - against our soldiers being put at risk other than to chase down Osama bin Laden. I agree that Saddam is truly despicable, but we are not the babysitter of the world, and we certainly have no business telling others how to live. If we were going to go in, it should have been honestly, with the blessing of the UN, and with a well-planned exit strategy to deal with the civil issues there and avoid the mess we caused by our haste and lack of forethought.
In my heart I knew we were going in under false pretenses, and I prayed but to no avail that someone with a little common sense had seen that the timing was poor and that we needed to give more thought to the outcome of our actions before we ever set foot on Iraqi soil. I am devastated at the loss of lives of vital, talented, courageous soldiers, and not just ours but those from other countries who believed in us and signed on to help, the pain this causes their friends and comrades at arms, and the devastating loss to too many families.
I am blessed in that my sons are safely on native soil, all three with disabilities that they live with nicely but which prevent them from ever seeing combat in a war. But I felt I needed to give of myself to support the men and women who are now at risk in what I have come to learn are quite often absolutely deplorable living conditions and to do what I can to show my support for the sons and daughters who have signed on to protect and serve our country, despite my feelings about the war itself.
I didn't mean to get on my soap box again, but my husband and I spend twice again our food budget each week to send food to soldiers who don't have enough to eat. We, as a country, should be ashamed. But I, and many people just like me, are proud Americans who are picking up the slack where our government has fallen down on the job, and helping out as best I can with more gratification than I ever thought I’d get from this effort.
I regret there weren't Angel families to help like this when you served our country. But I thank you sincerely for helping to protect us, and for your courage and bravery in risking death so that I have the privilege of rambling again in Laurie's blog.
With heartfelt gratitude for your service to all of us, Cathy
Cathy, you are an inspiration. Thank you for taking care of our soldiers, whatever you feel about the war. That actually means more to me than someone who just sends a box and doesn't really think about what they're doing.
I remember the first time one of my adopted soldiers I was chatting with online just signed off for no apparent reason - and didn't come back online for 3 days. (This was even before my daughter enlisted.) I was a nervous wreck - thinking mortars or worse. Didn't matter that soldier wasn't blood family ~ he was mine. I was so happy to see his screen name pop up on yahoo!!! and to hear that it was just an internet glitch!
Post a Comment