Changing Memories

I have fond memories of wet grass. Playing in the yard after a spring shower, running around while a sprinkler arced back and forth, standing in the grass and watching a thunderstorm roll past, only to squeal and run in fear when the lighting got too close. Standing barefoot in the grass evokes flashes of my childhood that are long gone, but still treasured, snapshots of time that have flown by. And now, those memories are overlaid with a more powerful one.

I wore heels to the welcome home ceremony. I also wore a dress. Which is huge for me, I am the girl of a thousand t-shirts, flip flops, jeans and shorts. But I wanted to mark this moment, to honor the specialness of the end of deployment. So I bought a dress, found a pair of high heeled sandals, and did my hair.

After months of waiting, weeks of countdowns, and what seems like an eternity of counting down the hours and minutes… I found myself standing on the parade field. The tears started as the buses pulled up, and didn't stop. It was my nerves finally snapping, it was the weight of deployment coming off my shoulders, it was the promise I'd been given so long ago… I will come home.

I realized I couldn't make my way through the crowd, hold Layla, and not fall flat on my face while in heels. I may be a Fiercely Independent Hooah Army Wife, but I am not a graceful one. So I found myself stepping out of my shoes, and onto the wet grass, just moments before the formation walked through the trees, and onto the parade field.

And standing there, holding a nearly asleep baby, fighting back tears that ended up streaking the mascara I so carefully applied, the memories of all those times I've stood in wet grass faded away. Replaced by the sight of that one soldier, the one I've been looking for, the one I've fought through my own deployment for, standing there.

Each second seemed to pass by, seemed to drag on and on forever, and my vision was filled with nothing but soldiers and their families. Mine was no where to be found, and just when I had the thought to turn towards the microphone, to have him paged to the striped square on the field… the crowd parted. And he was standing in front of me.

It took me a few moments of just staring at his nametape, looking at the name he gave me, the name he gave my little girl, before it dawned on me. The fog that I was in, the dreamy quality that was making the entire evening difficult to believe in, was gone. Deployment was over, the long hard season I had lived through was past, and my family was whole again.

My feet were rooted into place, standing in the wet grass, barefoot, but still in my nice dress, with my little girl, dressed in the outfit I bought just for this moment, on my shoulder. My dreams of that perfect moment were gone, I couldn't move, couldn't get my feet to take a step forward, I couldn't throw myself in his arms like I wanted to.

I still don't know who moved first, me or him. All I know was that the tears came, Layla kicked and squirmed, and I cried harder. Every emotion for the entire year hit me at once… the fear, the anger, the loneliness, the hurt. And I stood in the wet grass the entire time.

~Jennifer