One of the hardest parts of military life is living far away from your natural family. Obviously, we live in different geographical places, but the separation is far greater than points on a map. As time wears on, the military family learns a new languages full of acronyms and looming thoughts of war. The family continues their patterns and banter, bubbling over with the hullabaloo of the hometown or dysfunctional family gathering. Our communities also look vastly different. The family may live in a neighborhood, taking walks through the area and saying hello to neighbors they’ve known for decades. Meanwhile, our base housing communities appear similar on the outside, but it’s not uncommon to hear your neighbor with PTSD screaming next door. The heroes we share backyards with are also our sports coaches, co-workers and the span of age between us all is minimal. There’s no neighborhood Grandma passing out cookies. Over time, the ties that bind us to our far-away family, by and large, get cut.
The fray that remains still is love. We have our past in common. We have some continued knowledge of each other’s lives: who had a baby, who is getting married. Nevertheless, the cards stop arriving at Christmas. The invites to those life events altogether cease. No one remembers your children’s birthdays with cake, candles or a backyard barbecue. We become spectators in a far-away land to the celebrations and heartbreaks of our families. We wonder if anyone even remembers we are still part of the family, too.
We take some of the blame upon ourselves; maybe we should call or write more? Maybe I should’ve mailed change of address postcards after our 5th PCS? Maybe I should’ve stopped by for coffee the last time I was in town?
As hard as it is, our own flesh and blood cannot realize the pressure and restraints the military lifestyle causes. We never seem to call or visit frequently enough to satisfy our far-away relatives. While I am glad they don’t understand the rhythm of this lifestyle, the fact is our family time is already limited with our service member. Expecting video calls every weekend is difficult. We often times handle the ups and downs of life alone whilst supporting other military families walking the struggle with the support of their far-away family, too.
We do indeed take care of our own. We show up to bring the new Mom meals. We keep the kids when a couple’s marriage is constrained and date night seems like a last-ditch effort to hold it all together. We sit across from young couples in the hospital who lost their baby, in the place a parent would normally be. We visit psychiatric wards where our neighbor tried to take her life, because she was bone-tired managing life with a husband half a world away at all times. We give the eulogies at funerals and arrange the meal trains when someone dies for our nation. This is just barely scratching the surface… We have more on our plates than most know or ever realize.
We have not forgotten you, faraway family. Yet, we must forge ahead as we silently grieve our losses, praying and hoping for friends who are like family at each place we report for duty. After all, with you far away, who will be our emergency contact? Who will take the kids if we need to go to the ER? Who will sit around our table to share our Thanksgiving and Easter meals and traditions alongside us? It’s not that we don’t care or don’t have time for you. It’s that we must build connections on playgrounds and in line at the commissary. We aren’t replacing you, yet we also hope we could find fill-ins for our children’s soccer games and piano recitals.
The truth is, we are so lonely in this life, especially those of us who have chosen military life for the long-haul. We don’t want to hear how nice it is to retire between ages 40-45 from our relatives, because what we’ve had to forfeit for that goal is great. We have lost friends and comrades at war. We lose our community every 3 years when we relocate. And it seems we have lost well as you- our extended family- the Aunts and Uncles and cousins. We have to soothe our children’s broken hearts when they see their cousins make best friends with other children. We have to figure out how to fit FaceTime into each special occasion and celebration. And the sad reality is, it never seems to be enough to re-thread the connection we once shared.
While we are filled with great pride to serve our Nation- which includes our family back at home- we also live in constant tension with loss. The cost of freedom isn’t free and sometimes we forget the line upon line of expense. You are part of that sacrifice that we are making.
Have you heard this saying?
“If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, it was meant to be, If it doesn’t, it never was.”
So to every Mom, Dad, Sister, Brother, Aunt, Uncle, Cousin we live far from… we believe love is enough- no matter the distance, space or lack of connectivity. We realize you let us go- hoping we’d return. But we cannot tell what our futures hold as we serve our Nation. So please trust, while we are away, that this life we live, with all the struggles and misunderstandings, is our form of love toward you.