Holding on

I hold on to every photo that I see of him on Facebook.

I hold on to every time I see the green dot telling me he's available to chat. 
I hold on to every time my phone rings and it says "Kevin Afghanistan"
I hold on to every "I love you, baby"

Tonight I was putting away clothes in our dresser and I realized. I haven't even opened his side of the dresser since he left in November.  So I did.  And with it I opened up the flood gates of tears.  Everything is right as it was when he left.  His underwear and socks fully stocked because I'm not having to play catch up with his laundry too.  Everything is ready for him to be home.  Where he belongs. 

We started dating in Jan. 2007.   So we have been together around 6 years.  That is  73 months.  We have physically only been together for  38 months of that.   A little over 50% of the last 6 years.  3 years that we have been apart. 
I think God prepared us for this way back in 2007.  We started our relationship and grew our relationship solely on communication.  Phone calls, emails, instant messenger.  We were tired of that life.  We were tired of being apart.  We got married in Nov. 2008 and at this time Kevin was out of Active Duty and was part of the Minnesota National Guard.  A few months later we found out we were pregnant with Lauren. Lauren was born in August 2009.  Kevin decided that year to go back to Active Duty.  He wanted to provide better for our family.  We prayed a lot about it.  It was hard for me to accept.  I would have to leave the first job that I absolutely loved in Minnesota.  I loved being a dental hygienist.
January2010:  A month after Kevin signed his contract to re-enlist, we found out we were pregnant with Kaelin. What were we going to do? Lauren was only 4 months old!  Kevin left a week later for Ft. Riley, KS.  I was in Minnesota without him,  with a 4 month old baby, just a few weeks pregnant (in secret still), finishing off my last week of work, arranging appointments with movers, getting everything ready and off and on puking ...again in secret.  We were apart about 2 weeks then.  We got to Ft. Riley, moved into a house that he picked out and I had never seen. We sat on the floor and slept on air mattresses for a couple of days until the moving truck arrived with all of our belongings.  We were told he wouldn't be deploying.  The unit he was joining had only been home for 4 short months. I felt like I could breath a sigh of relief.  The next few months flew by.  I learned that Kevin was on Army time.  Supper time was not at 5:30 every night.  Supper was when he got home and that was 6pm, 8pm, 10pm or not at all.  I saw him for a few short hours every evening and then he was off to bed early because 4:30am comes quite early.
We found out in June that he would be deploying to Iraq in November 2010 for 12 months.  In August of 2010 he left for a month to do training in Louisiana.  He arrived home 3 days before I gave birth to Kaelin.  When Kaelin was 7 weeks old and Lauren 14 months, we sent Kevin off with his unit to fight in Operation New Dawn formerly known as Operation Iraqi Freedom.  This was Kevin's second deployment.  His first was before we were married.  It was also to Iraq for 16 months. 
Praising God that he came home safe to us.  Praising God for the technology that we have today that we could chat.  It was a slow deployment, or so he told me.  They didn't do much but prepare for the troop drawdown.  They closed a lot of bases, did a lot of inventory, a lot of peace keeping missions.  I was just fine with that.  I nearly talked to him every single day on the phone. My blue tooth was glued to my ear at all times.  Until the day came and I was watching the news.  I never really ever watched the news and tried not to read it online but the media had leaked already that there was an attack and 6 men from the Brigade out of Ft. Riley were killed when insurgents sent rocket propelled grenades over the walls of the base and hit the trailers where the men were sleeping.  Killing 6, wounding several more.  Eventually a 7th would die of his wounds.  I didn't get a phone call the next day.  My heart sunk.  I didn't leave the house for 2 days.  I cried in the shower.  I was scared to answer the door if it was ever to ring.  It was hands down one the most anxious and scared I have ever been to date. Another day went by and I know from experience after that long, no news is good news for our family, atleast.    The following day I received an email from the FRG (Family Readiness Group)  listing casualties and later that day I received an email from Kevin that said something like "I am fine.  I love you very much. I don't know when we'll be able to talk next. I love you." 
That was it.  It was 2 weeks when I finally talked to him again. 
Fast forward to Nov. 2011.  Kevin returned safely to us at Ft. Riley, KS.  It took months for us all to get back in a groove.  Kaelin didn't even know her father. It was so hard for all of us.  Hard for him because he wanted her to love him back so bad and hard for me because I didn't get the "relief or break" I needed from the kids.  Frustration on both our ends when he didn't fix the kids eggs the way they liked them or when he'd go and cut Lauren's food smaller after I had already prepared it because when he left she had just started eating table food and now she was over 2 years old, speaking in full sentences and eating string cheese whole!  Things took time. 
We PCS'd (Permanent Change of Station) to Joint Base Lewis-McChord in May 2012.  We thought life was going to settle down.  For a few months it did.  We got into a groove.  The girls adored their father.  Our relationship was the strongest it's ever been and we thought we were going to be together for the next couple of years.  We had come so close and then the rug was pulled out from underneath us in October 2012 that Kevin would be deploying to Afghanistan in just 3 short weeks for a 9 month tour.  I was devastated.  He was devastated.  I have never seen him so upset in my entire life.  It was hard because he had such a personal relationship now with our daughters.  They are growing and talking in full sentences and telling him they love him and giving him kisses.  Stuff he so longed for the first month that he was home after Iraq.  He had everything and felt like it was being taken away.  He felt like he was letting us all down.  He still does feel that way.
While it seems crazy and insane that we go through all of this, I wouldn't do it with anyone else.  God based our relationship for the first almost 2 years strictly on communication and long distance.  We thought once we said "I do" that it would "fix" everything but that was just the beginning. 

So now I hold on to what I can to get through each day.  I hold on to this picture and pray every day that God brings him home safely to us.