Teaching Layla

If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?

John Wooden

Years ago, before I found myself with Carl, before I lived as an Army Wife, I thought the good days in life would be endless. I knew that there were bad days, I had suffered through some bad days myself, but they never seemed to last. The bad days didn't seem to form up a long line, stretching out as far as I could see. And while I had struggled, and while I thought I had lived through some tough times, I had no idea what was coming for me.

When the long dark of our first deployment stretched out before me, when all I saw were days that he was gone, days I was alone, I clung to the pictures we had. They were images of a time when life was good and the sun was bright. I would stare at those pictures at night, one hand pressed to the baby bump I had for so much of that year, until my eyes burned. After Layla got here, I would hold her tiny body up to the screen, and even though her eyesight was still fuzzy and hazy, I would show her those pictures, and tell her that we would have good days again.

This isn't to say I did not have good days during deployment… but even on the best day, he was still gone. And it still felt like I was ripped in two.

And while I was showing a picture to Layla, I kissed the top of her head and told her that it was not how many long days you have, but what you do with those days. I didn't realize I had learned that lesson until I was explaining it to her, that what is important is those good days, that the good days get you through life, from one bad day to another, and beyond, until you have one of those golden, perfect days.

Deployment will come again. And he will be gone for much more than that, the idea that a soldier comes home from a deployment and is home all the time is a myth. He will be gone for training, for school, there are all kinds of things that will eat away from his time at home.

But on our free days, when we head to the beach, walk through the park, run in the yard and hide Easter eggs, walk around the neighborhood and splash in puddles left over from the rain, when we all take a nap together… all those times when we cram as much good into a single day as we possibly can.

Those are the days to remember and to cherish. Those are the important days. Not even the hard season of a deployment can take the good days from us, and I am teaching that to Layla, with every good day we have.

 ~Jennifer

It took far longer than I wanted it to, but her first trip to the beach was a success. She loved every minute of it.