Weeping Endures For a Night…

September 23, 2009 By Claire
Posted in Spouse and Family

The scripture passage proclaims “…weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning!” Psalm 56:8(b). I certainly had a time of weeping last night, and it took me a while to find my joy.

This past Monday I dropped my youngest son off at the Recruiting Station for his trip to Ft. Jackson’s happy camp for wayward sons. I know he’s stoked. He’s doing what he’s always wanted to do. That coupled with trying to navigate the emotions of my oldest son going back to the Middle East set me up for a vivid dream. Hey, at least it’s cheaper than therapy.

I woke up very early this morning (around 4) with an extremely vivid and very touching dream. It is odd because the dream was not bad. It was not scary. It didn’t seem to reflect a working out of any deep fears of what my son is going through or what he may face while he is deployed again. Instead the dream reflected an extremely deep grief within me. A grief that I have been holding back in expressing.

My husband jokingly calls me “Stonewall.” The good General is one of my all time most admired historic military leaders, so even though it’s a little bit of a loving jab at my stoic nature, I think it’s a compliment.

The dream seemed to be one way I was processing my grief again. I haven’t written much about it this time from a personal perspective until now. Writing’s how I have coped in the past. Stories will find their way from the mind and the heart out into the open… whether it’s in written words or sobs of grief.

In my dream the household was back to how I love remembering it when my guys were still home. It was joyfully noisy! Someone is wrestling someone else, loud guy voices laughing, chiding, and talking. I spend a lot of my time in the kitchen when everyone is home. I teasingly tell them it’s to get away from the guy smell and the loud guy talk, but in reality it’s because I love to cook. There is nothing more pleasing to a Southern cook than a house full of hungry guys.

In the dream I am watching playful banter, hearing laughter and drinking the scene in with my senses. My daughter in law is there, my youngest son, several other guys and lots of our friends. I am loving the liveliness, but I return to the kitchen. I am taken aback when I enter my culinary domain because my deployed son is standing there near the sink. He isn’t supposed to be there. He’s in Iraq.

He is standing there leaning up against the counter and he smiles at me. I can see that he’s caked in a sandy mud that formed from sweat and spitting sand. He’s in full battle rattle, weapon and all. He smiles at me and he sees that I am shaken by seeing him there. He puts his arms out to me and I go to hug him, but this time instead of reassuring him I break down and I weep like a child while he is hugging me. It’s the hardest thing in the world for me in that moment because I have never wept in front of any of my kids before. I have always been strong for them… but this time I just fall to pieces. He whispered to me “Hey, it’s OK. I’m fine. I’m going to be fine you know!”

The dream was so vivid that I could clearly hear his voice. I could feel the sand on his ACUs. I could even smell the sweat mingled with dirt. I could feel his chest rise and fall as he reassured me that he was fine. I was weeping, but felt relief because for that moment he was safe. He was home.

I woke up weeping so hard that I could barely breath. I wept for the rest of the morning. I am weeping now as I recall it. It was seeing him in the kitchen, alone, and separated from the living that was going on in the next room that really took my breath away. It was hearing life go on in one room, and seeing life standing still in the next that has me perplexed while I try to dig through these emotions.

Ultimately it’s his sacrifice that I am both grateful for and grieved over. I know he is fine. I know he loves what he is doing. He found his calling. Now, somewhere deep down in the core of my being I have to find peace with that. Peace that the sacrifices he is making today will not haunt him tomorrow – and that if it does he will find a way to reconcile that.

I have to find a way to fully integrate the patriot and the mom because they are sometimes at odds with one another. The patriot always feeling proud while the mother bitterly wants to know why someone else can’t go this time. I know that we are the someone else. I also know we are a fortunate family who has not paid anywhere near the same cost that so many others have paid.

It’s a matter of finding that middle ground again. Each deployment is different. Each time it happens we are all in a different place in our lives because as humans we are dynamic and are not meant to be static. It’s not merely a pre-recorded, re-run that we go through when we face multiple deployments. Each time we grieve a new grief and we cry brand new tears of sadness. We lose new hours with our soldier, we lose new memories with them, we face new found fears. That’s the weeping that endures for a night.

The joy that comes in the morning is found in the newly resolved courage we find. The courage to find some peace with it all, somehow. The courage to refuse to languish in grief. The courage to wash the tears off our faces and face the world and the reality we have been handed with … resolve.

3 Comments »