I almost lost it. I walked into the Kangaroo convenience store on my newspaper route to drop off papers for the rack in the store. Toby Keith’s “American Soldier” was playing on the radio. I laid my head on the counter and pointed at the radio. “He’s only been gone two days,” I said. “I can’t do this yet.” I raised my head and started talking about the papers I brought, checked them in and left quickly, talking continuously as I walked out the door so I wouldn’t hear the rest of the song. I love that song.
Half my heart is in the uniform pocket of Sgt. Jason Nichols somewhere on his way to Afghanistan. And I’m in survival mode, wrestling with this lump of emotion that gets stuck in my throat every time he leaves. Being a military mom is wonderful and awful. For about two or three weeks after he leaves, I’m in this state of emotional flux somewhere between smiling with pride and screaming. I can go from goofing around to slamming doors at the drop of a hat. After that, I’m fine.
Friday, I went to The Party Connection like I did when he left for Iraq and Annika made me another yellow ribbon with a big bow to put on the tree out front. Annika seems to know what to do with me when I’m like this. She kept me talking while she made the bow, hugged me and sent me out the door.
I feel bad for people trying to figure out what to say to me. Sometimes they give me this pitiful look. I hate that. Honestly, I feel honored to have a son who’s a soldier. “Don’t cry, Mom,” Jason said and I go about my daily life as normally as I can because that’s what he wants. That’s why he’s there.
I love when people ask about him. It means a lot to me. Jason loves to make people laugh and tells me stories about his latest goofy antics with his buddies to make me laugh. I love telling people about them and it helps. I’ve learned it’s Jason’s way of taking care of me. I’m sure by now his superiors respond with the same “that’s Jason” that my family uses. But I hate it when someone insists on trying to involve me in a discussion of their opinions about the war. My opinions on that subject are very conflicted and something I keep very close to my heart. I’m not sure I know how I feel about it. I don’t want to seem rude, so I’m left to listen to a barrage of negative things my son is associated with and that’s hard.
Saying goodbye was much harder this time, mostly because Jason and I reconnected while he was home. He took me out to dinner for Christmas. He told Mandy, his fiancée, that he didn’t get to spend much time with me (he’s stationed in Kentucky) and felt like he didn’t know me very well anymore. That’s the best present he could have given me.
Jason dropped me off after our dinner. I knew that might be the last time I saw him for 18 months. Watching him walk off the porch, I felt as if Velcro had attached us and he took a layer of my skin with him when he left. We went through this three times, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. Each time, we thought he wouldn’t be home for the next holiday and he was. Makes me wonder how other military families do it. I’m used to heart-wrenching things with Jason. He’s always been 90 miles an hour, the kind of child that frequently causes his mother heart failure with his daredevil antics. Lately, when it wasn’t his being in Iraq, it was showing everyone all the ways he souped up his mustang and squalling tires when he left my house just because he knows it drives me crazy. That’s Jason. At least he’s not a gunner in a humvee this time. He’s refueling helicopters.
My younger son Josh and I have already fallen into our routine, talking about things we do that are like Jason. Josh says he wants to go to college to work on computers when he graduates, but occasionally he talks about going into the military. Somebody shoot me.