The First 24

Leaving the airport I fell mechanically into mother-mode. Four hungry mouths insisted they were starving. My mother-in-law suggested we all go out for lunch. “That sounds good,” I said, anything to keep us from returning to a home without hubby.

Pulling into our driveway a few hours later I started making a mental list of all the household chores that had been ignored the last week as we prepared for hubby’s departure. Even before the garage door closed I had assigned each child a task. Take out the garbage. Clean the litter box. Straighten the family room. As for me, piles of laundry called my name.

“We can do this,” I convinced myself, “I can do this.” Taking a deep breath, I opened the door and entered an empty house.

Who was I kidding?

Leaning over to grab tennis shoes tossed on our bedroom floor I chuckled. “Well, at least I won’t be picking up after him for the next year.”

The next year.

I sat down beside the shoes and sobbed.

The same scenario played out over and over again every time I did something for the “last” time. Hung up a bathrobe. Folded his jeans. Cleared the pieces of paper from his dresser.

The instant I pulled out the last t-shirt from the dryer I regretted it. All his clothes were washed and now nothing smelled like him. I dashed up to our closet hoping to find an item I missed and damned myself for being so thorough.

I stayed up way too late that night, dreading crawling into bed. Sleep overcame my will about 1 a.m. Laying my head on my pillow, I snuggled up to a new box of Kleenex praying that tomorrow would be a little more tolerable.

It was. Just a little. Very little.

Tears often caught me off guard the next couple of months. I couldn’t trust myself to speak about much of anything fearing I would start to blubber.

Then about the three month point things start to even out. The “recovery and stabilization” phase of the emotional cycle of deployment kicked in and I started functioning better in my new normal.

That doesn’t mean I don’t cry anymore. The tears have become as predictable and measured as Sunday afternoons. They no longer flood my ability to do anything else.

But my throat tightens up and eyes start to water whenever I recall those first 24 hours without him.