Thoughts Elsewhere

I'm over at DC Metro Moms with a fun little post about my future at the park. You can read it here.

However, my thoughts today and yesterday and tomorrow are really out in California with my little sister who had to kiss her hubby goodbye last night as he heads to Afghanistan for a year. Let me repeat: a year. I can't even imagine. They've weathered two 7 month deployments already (both of those to Iraq) and came out stronger as individuals and a couple.

At Mass on Sunday, in the Prayers of the Faithful, one of the prayers referenced "as we mark seven years since the start of the Iraq war." I thought, can that be possible? Seven years. Indeed, it has been that long and even longer that we've been in Afghanistan.

No matter what your feelings are on war and peace or these two wars in particular, it is so so important that we all keep our troops and their families in the forefront of our minds, our hearts and our prayers. And if you want to put particular names to your prayers, please make it Sarah and Mike.

I can't wait to give Sarah a big hug when she comes to visit over Easter. Hopefully some newphew therapy (and meeting Nathaniel for the first time!) will help just a bit.

Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

Thoughts and prayers

Today my sister will kiss her husband good-bye as he boards a bus to board a plane to go to Iraq. For seven months. She thinks she's ready this time because it will be the second time she has done this. The second time she's said good-bye as he heads to Iraq. The second time she's been alone with her house and her dogs for seven months waiting for him to return. I'm so proud of her and of him and ask you to keep them both in your thoughts and prayers today and until he returns, safe and sound.

Morbid? Not at all.

So, have you ever wondered what it would be like to attend your own funeral and hear all the nice things people have to say about you?

No?

Well, I have.

And, I think it would feel almost exactly like what it felt like to read this. Only I'm still alive and so get to say thank-you to my little sister for making me feel so wonderful.

My baby sis

I'm an oldest child. I think probably anybody who knows me would guess that pretty quickly! My little sister is five years younger than me and I find it really hard to think of her as an adult. A big part of me still feels like I need to take care of her, that she can't handle life on her own. And yet over the last several years, I've been proven wrong on that many, many times.

Sarah is married. Married to a Marine. Married to a Marine helicopter pilot who is currently in Iraq. Together she and her husband have moved across the country three times. Together they weathered a hurricane together in Florida. By herself she's managed a house and two dogs for six months alone. Sarah is a teacher. A middle school teacher. An awesome middle school teacher. And now, Sarah and her dogs and her home have survived major fires in Southern California.

I'm so totally impressed with her. I don't know if I could manage without my husband--knowing he's serving in Iraq no less--for 7 months. I don't know how I would have handled evacuating from my home and going several days with no idea if it would still be standing when I returned.

I know my sister can handle it, did handle it, is handling it. But, I still hope she needs me to be her big sister sometimes.


P.S. Check out Sarah and her friend Andrea on NPR this weekend: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15713254