It's crazy how my productivity skyrocketed with Nick's arrival time in mind. Emmy and I were up with the sun on Thursday, March 3rd. It's almost like she knew how momentous the day would be. Either that, or she had a fever and felt like crud. Crud aside, she rallied big time. Decked out in our jammies, we hit the grocery store with the early birds to stock our fridge with Nick's favorites: hummus and pita chips, sandwich fixin's, guac and chips, and not to forget the Purple Haze and Blue Moon beer. Emmy enjoyed her very first donut as a treat for her perfect (sick) behavior!
We filled up the air in Nick's tires and topped off the tank of gas before heading home to clean house and decorate. It was all going way too smoothly; I should've known my rotten luck would insert itself somehow.
As I was making bread, my Kitchen Aid shimmied its way off the counter to obliterate Molly and Darla's water bowl (PRAISE JESUS that Emmy was no where near!) Later, as I stepped into the shower, after frantically cleaning the whole house, the shower head broke. Of course, that's the only part of the house that Nick would appreciate to be clean and functioning when he arrived home. Wearing not much more than soap suds, I made a mad dash around the house to gather tools in an attempt to make a quick repair. Much to my chagrin, that was not in the cards and neither was a relaxing shower. So, I showered, with an intense stream of water spouting out of the wall, to then throw myself together, before waking up a feverish Emmy to get ready to go. To exacerbate my time crunch further, I needed to come up with a quick home remedy for an unfortunate self waxing mishap (I will refrain from any more detail as that already teeters on the brink of too much). Nothing, NOTHING, ever goes as smoothly as it does in my head. God's sense of humor with me is boundless.
Emmy and I came screeching into the nearby gas station where we were 15 minutes late to connect up with Thomas, a producer with The Documentary Group in New York. His company was hired by the history department at West Point and the Class of '67 to create a film on the changing times of the military centered on the members for that particular graduating class. They have interviewed Nick's dad (a '67 grad) and will interview Nick in the coming weeks. They were interested in having footage of Nick's homecoming to show during the interview portion of the film. Who am I to tell a documentarian not to document our homecoming!?!? Nerves aside, I was more than happy to oblige; especially after I had dropped some dough at TJ Maxx on a more becoming homecoming outfit. With 22 hours lead time, Thomas traveled from the Big Apple to meet me at the exit 1 Shell station in time to get to post for Nick's plane to land. The fact that it worked so seamlessly was truly an act of God!
It was the most glorious day, sunny and nearly 70 degrees. Other homecoming ceremonies took place in freezing temperatures, torrential downpours and thunderstorms; but ours was perfect. I joked with some of the other family members that it was probably the first thing that had gone right with this deployment. I hoped that was an indication of what's to come (although that thought was fleeting...:-P)
It was not long before the plane touched down on American soil. Thank you LORD!
Our soldiers emerged from the plane, one by one, carrying their heavy loads and scary-looking weapons. With hearts racing, we all squinted to see our soldiers in the distance.
Then we saw them. It took me a few tries to project my voice loudly and clearly enough to grab Nick's attention. Finally, he saw us. The smile on his face was the biggest and brightest I think I've ever seen. If I could have seen my own face, I would probably say the same for me.
The surge of relief and elation is indescribable. I now understand that there's no way to know that level of joy without hitting rock bottom first.
After the families reconvened inside, the hangar doors opened to reveal the formation of our returning soldiers. The army sure does know how to give a girl goosebumps! After a brief ceremony, the soldiers were dismissed for 15 minutes of family time. True to form, it took me three or so minutes of that time, with Thomas hot on my trail, to find Nick. But that didn't matter, because we tracked him down, and I have known few moments as sweet as when I found myself back in his arms, for good.
We spent our brief time talking with other soldiers who came by to welcome Nick home and exchanged introductions and hugs with two of the families of our fallen. A very bittersweet but important time, for sure. All too soon, we were called on to return to our seats, as the soldiers returned to formation to then complete their initial reintegration work. About an hour and a half later, Thomas, Emmy and I met Nick and his bags at the secondary hangar where he was finally free to come home!
We loaded the car and bid farewell to Thomas. Nick called his family for the first time since his boots hit the ground; and then we were finally able to relax and speak about whatever came to mind first, without a shaky internet connection or a phone line threatening to cut us off. Nick's plane had several stops before arriving home: Kyrgyzstan, Romania, Germany, Iceland, and Canada. My husband has seen no shortage of obstacles in the last year, it would be appropriate that his route home be equally as complicated.
My streak of bad luck picked back up when we got home, with my phone (temporarily) dying, a bout of traveler's stomach discomfort and a deranged bird flying into our house. Albeit annoying, it was less so having my better half there to laugh with me about it. I now know that together, with God, nothing can knock us down. NOTHING.
