452 Days

February 4, 2008 will forever be burned in my memory. It had been a particularly loooong day, and I hadn't heard from Justin at all. He usually calls at lunch and then again as he's getting ready to leave work. I remember looking at the clock, thinking 'he should be home by now, and he hasn't even called'. I assumed his day had been as long as mine (turns out...it was). I saw the deadbolt turn, and the door opened. By the look on his face, I immediately knew something was wrong.

Justin proceeded to break the news that he had been selected to deploy to Afghanistan. As I've mentioned before, most medical deployments right now seem to be 6-7 months. We just lucked out and ended up with 15! My initial reaction was not one of panic, surprisingly. I knew this had to be a mistake, and I immediately started an internal dialog planning how we were going to get out of this. Turns out, the Navy doesn't let you "get out" of anything. The next morning he forwarded me this email:

Subject: DEPLOYMENT TASKING: FAMILY PHYSICIAN TO AFGHANISTAN FOR 452 DAYS,
DEPLOYING 26 MAY 2008
Importance: High

Good morning,

Please accept this as an official tasking to identify a Family Physician to deploy to Afghanistan (as part of a Training and Mentor Team for the Afghanistan health system) for 452 days on 26 May 2008. Analysis was based on current deployed numbers (by Command/NOBC) and number of eligible deployers (Nov 2009 PRD). Pool of available deployers is small...

This was followed by a bunch of letters & numbers that mean nothing to me, but probably should. The only number that stood out to me was 452. The number of days I would be without a husband. The number of days my kids would be without a father. The number of bedtime stories he would miss. The number of nights I would not sleep.

At this point, it all became very real to me. The days to follow were filled with tears and questions...mostly, disbelief. The exact number of days has changed since then (445), and I'm sure it will change again, but the feelings have not. We are just moving forward, trying our best to have faith in the Plan...even if we don't fully understand it.

One thing I have become very grateful for is the blessing of the internet. He's taking a little laptop with a built-in web cam,and if all goes according to plan, we will be able to see his face every day...or at least most days. What a huge blessing! As an added bonus, Justin has just started up a blog to document his adventures in Afghanistan. It really is a miracle, that we can stay connected in so many ways from opposites sides of the world.

So, this is my really looong way of introducing Justin's blog. Check it out...it should be interesting!


good things...

1. house hunting without kids (thanks, Mom)
2. 2 days until Abbie's birthday
3. the internet (thanks, Al Gore ;)