The Elephant in the Room

“What is your biggest fear?” I asked Hubby.

Lounging in front of a fireplace at a bed and breakfast (without children), we were finally able to talk about the more serious issues regarding his deployment.

He studied the flames for a couple of minutes, and then turned back to me. “My biggest fear is not coming back.”

There. It was said. Something we were both thinking, but never saying.

Now the fact is that more people have died in car accidents in our state alone over the last three years than the total number of US military fatalities in Iraq. Statistically it is more dangerous for Hubby to drive to work everyday then to serve his country in the Sandbox.

Still, there is something about being issued personal body armor that makes death seem far more possible.

We talked about the “what ifs.” Not a fun conversation, but a necessary one, and in a strange way comforting. Comforting to know Hubby’s desires for our family’s future, for my future, should anything happen.

The other comfort lies in the fact that he said, “not coming back” not “I will not see you again.”

For there is another truth we both hold dear:

I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another.
Job 19:25-27