Prelude to a Deployment: Part 2

My best friend was gone. Our finances were messy and I didn't have a handle on them. I hadn't been taking care of myself or my dogs for years. What a predicament. The only thing to do was call mom.

Now for an overly educated woman in her mid 30s who has not lived within a thousand miles of her mother in 15+ years, it was not an easy call to make and ask for help. My mother basically dropped everything and came to spend a week with me. She helped me set up a budget that I could work with and some other things to help me get our finances in order (or at least in an order that I could understand). That was a major hurdle. That was probably the biggest hurdle I had to face in the last 18 months.

So it was all downhill from there! Right.

JD was in Westville off and on over the next 6 months. He was able to come home 3-4 times before being mobilized. It was really nice when he had to attend a school about 150 miles from here. He was able to come home on the weekends 3 weeks in a row. Those were very special times and I tried to make them as pleasant as possible for him. It was hard for him to have to leave over and over, but we had a bigger picture in mind and were willing to put up with these inconveniences.

Fast forward several months. JD was able to come home in July 2006 for 10 days. That was his last trip home before deployment. We were able to meet up one more time in a town half-way between here and the mobilization station for 3 days. 3 very short days. Time was moving too quickly and I didn't want to let him go. There were so many unknowns. Would he be able to call me as we planned? What kind of hours would be be keeping? How great was the actual danger that he would be facing? Would I ever see him again, whole, intact?

But there was one big known factor that I did not want to deal with. He, and we, would be forever changed by this experience. I did not want to let go of the man I knew and the relationship we had. But eventually I had to. For the practical reasons (we both had 5-hour drives ahead of us) and the possible better future.

One week later, JD boarded a plane for Iraq.