1.17.03
9:01am
Yet Another Trip to Lowes -Morgan Young
Last night after one of my many stops at Lowes; this time to pick up some expanding foam to battle the new drafts in our home that January's arctic onslaught has awakened; I listened to National Public Radio and noticed it was 6:17 by the blue green clock display in our mini-van. The reporter talked of and with a military family. The wife and mother, Bronwyn, was preparing to ship out any time to the seemingly most problematic spot on our globe; the infamous Middle East Gulf region. It was mentioned that she had been there twelve years earlier in the Desert Storm Gulf War. As I'm sure the Gulf War ear-marked her life it clearly was a mile marker for me as well; an event that happened that conjures up what I was doing at the time, whom I was doing it with, and who I was.
Twelve years seemed like an error. Certainly it had not been clearly over a decade ago that the Gulf War took place? But the thought of Wolf Blitzer reporting took me back to a retreat in a southern Indiana resort, at the employ of a company that no longer exists. Ironically the Gulf War seems like only a few years back, while the company I worked for seemed like a time when I was a kid, working with and for people I haven't seen but in a past life. My behavior and lifestyle then was of a man many wouldn't recognize now. And Bronwyn's life is different now too. She has a 3 year old. Her husband talked of a map that they keep out and how he shows their 3 year old where mommy is going. The child now points to the Middle East where Bronwyn is headed and says, "Mommy!"
Bronwyn and her husband talked about readying to deploy. The husband spoke of how hard it was going to be trying to explain "why mommy isn't here" to their 3 year old. His words and delivery were calm enough, but his tone revealed sobering dread. As they talked about what it was like readying for her to deploy, I could hear all the background sounds of their home; dinner dishes clanking, the familiar laughs and whines of a 3 year old. And in the foreground, I could hear the concern in their voices. Driving in the dark it was easy to see them and look around their home; a home not too different from ours. As the story unfolded there was nothing seeming emotional in it, no childhood disease, no loss of life, but I felt emotion pulsing up in the back of my throat, as if my emotion were toothpaste and the story was slowly but firmly squeezing from the bottom up.
Perhaps it was knowing that no one in our home was going to have to explain a long absence by Sandra or me. Maybe it was seeing Meg & Slate in their 3 year old footy-pajama-stage of life, knowing how fuzzy and magnetic kids are at that age and realizing how hard leaving would be. Maybe it was all that and the natural connection that happens between parents; there's a bond there that we all know. We all know what it is to miss our kids, of not being able to see them. We all know the immense value of an uninitiated long tight hug by a son or daughter. We all know the warmth of seeing "firsts" in little lives. And I suppose I understood Bronwyn's immediate future and how the mundane things I would dread in the weeks ahead; things like cleaning up after a messy child, she would soon give anything to do. I suppose I imagined what it would be like to try to bring understanding to a 3 year old who was incapable of understanding, and being faced with that tension alone---there may be nothing tougher on the planet than not being able to quench the emotional needs of a small child; in this case, the only solace to offer, "She'll be back."
I think it was the double emotional whammy of being thankful for the slightly drafty home I was heading towards and feeling true empathy for a family I'd just met on the radio. I love my family. I love finding human connection in unexpected places. I love it that the two got into a twisted knot in my throat in such a mundane task as buying expanding foam. When you spray foam into a gap, it becomes more than it looks like it is initially. Driving home from Lowe's was foam in a ten minute gap in my life.
