I don't want to trust my fragile mind to remember that day forever, so I'll write it down instead.
Before this ceremony, my favorite memory was picking up B from the airport for his R&R in May. Of course, I have fond memories of many things that happened before that, but I can play the airport scene over and over in my mind and I never get tired of it. It could have been in a movie. That's a story for another day, however. Now, my favorite memory is the entire welcome home ceremony. I know that this will not be my last welcome home ceremony, but this was my first and I went into it rather blindly. Ok, the story:
Friday, January 2, 2009.
My in-laws (FIL, MIL, & SIL) had arrived from TX the night before. When we went to sleep the official time for the ceremony was 1:15pm. By morning, the time had changed to 2:45pm. Guess we had another hour and a half to kill that afternoon. We all showered, got dressed, ate breakfast and then lunch. Well, I didn't really eat much for lunch besides graham cracker sticks. I had purposely been avoiding the thought of B coming home in my mind. I had no idea what to expect. I was afraid he had changed or I had changed or that we wouldn't be the same together anymore. I had also learned how to live alone for the last year. Would he fit into my life?
B texted me around 2 saying they had just landed in Alexandria. Now, I know that the drive from Alex is one hour and if they were just landing at 2 then there was no way they'd be on time to their 2:45 welcome home ceremony. He offered to text me when they'd been on the road for 30 minutes so we'd know when to head to the ceremony, but I told him not to worry about it. I had been obsessively checking the website with the ceremony times and his had not changed. I told him we'd head up there like we planned and wait as long as we needed to.
We loaded up in both cars around 2:20 and headed up there. I made a point of taking two cars so B would have a good 15 minutes ride to process everything before he had to be social with everyone. The ceremony was taking place in a gym used for youth sports that I had never seen or been inside before. We walked in and it was a gym alright. Along one long wall was about 6 rows of wooden slide out bleachers (ya know the classic gym kind) with 5 rows of chair in from of them. The gym floor had been covered with a big blue tarp thing and there was a large open area in the middle - presumably where the gyms would eventually end up. There were two screens playing a video montage of pictures with music on a continuous loop. Every flag for every state was on display as well as Old Glory herself.
There were people everywhere. Of course there were more women than men and there was an abundance of children of varying ages. We weren't totally sure where to sit so we just headed to the opposite end of the gym from where we came in to be closer to the entrance the guys would come it. We sat on the 3rd row of the wooden bleachers figuring the height would help us see. At 2:45 a guy got on the microphone and made this announcement: "The guys have just left Alexandria. The ceremony will start in one hour." A collective groan rippled through the crowd. We hunkered down for another hour of waiting. Of course I had to pee at one point so all 3 women headed to the luxurious bathroom (HA!) with a whopping two stalls. I used a nice drizzle of hand sanitizer after that little adventure. SIL and I had fun observing others' clothing choices while waiting for the minutes to tick by.
The time somehow went by rather fast. Before I knew it all the guys in uniform were being rounded up for parking lot duty and everyone who was outside was sent inside. (There were alot of people who thought they were so special that they could meet their guy outside and wouldn't have to wait inside like the rest of us.) That's probably when the butterflies started. We thought it was only a matter of moments before they burst through the door. We were wrong. They played a video of the guys getting off the plane in Alexandria. It would have been really cool if all the guys weren't backlit so they were just black blobs. There was no way in heck I would have been able to pick my uniformed husband from anyone else's uniformed husband. It was pretty much torture watching it and there were a TON of guys getting off this plane! It finally ended and the moment I had waited 400 days for was so very close.
I don't even remember now what they said, but this song I'm pretty sure is by Toby Keith started playing and the doors burst open with a flood of sunlight and man after man looking handsome in their ACUs. Everyone immediately jumped up shouting and clapping. I ended up on top of the bleacher in front of me to get me as high as possible without blocking anyone's view behind me. I clapped the entire time even when others had stopped. Every single man in that room deserved my clapping. After a couple rows of guys I leaned to my SIL and asked if I'd missed him cause I hadn't seen him yet. She reassured me that she hadn't seen him yet either. Finally on the 4th row of guys (the rows stretched the length of the gym) my SIL spotted him. Somehow - luckily for us - he ended up on the front row so we could keep our eyes on him the entire time. He wouldn't look up. I sorta knew he wouldn't Some guys were looking around trying to find their families. B's eyes were hidden by his cap the entire time. Everyone was called to attention for the National Anthem and then some guy - couldn't tell ya who he was - gave some speech about something. I assume it was about the guys doing a great job, etc, etc. We had all resumed our seated positions at this point and I was kind of settling in expecting a reasonably long ceremony. I was wrong.
This guy who I don't know who he was talked for maybe a minute or two and then said "This concludes the ceremony. Families, GO FIND YOUR SOLDIER!!" I uttered some profanity, grabbed my SIL's hand and took off. I knew exactly where he had been and it would be a little bit of a treck through people and chairs to get to him. By the time we burst through the first row of chairs, the careful rows of soldiers had collapsed and I was suddenly surrounded by men in uniform. I had a moment of panic. I was afraid I either wouldn't find him or I'd lose him in the sea of camo. SIL spotted him again through the smallest of spaces between people and I beelined for him. He didn't even see me coming. He looked kind of sad and lost. I launched myself on him and locked my arms around his neck for dear life. I didn't care if he wanted to let go. I didn't care who was watching. I wasn't letting go. When I finally released him from my death grip I realized I was crying. Not crazy sobbing crying, just tears slowly streaming down my face. I turned to my SIL and found her crying as well. We then started backtracking trying to find my in-laws that we had quickly left in the dust a few minutes earlier.
We left the gym, took pictures, collected B's bags and headed home. We had a couple days of enjoyable times with his parents and just thoroughly enjoyed each other. Work has started up again for B so I am alone at home for hours a day, but it's ok because I know where he'll be every night - with me.
I'm sure with time my memories of that day will become fuzzier, but I am convince that I will never forget that feeling. There isn't a word to describe it. Those 2 minutes between the order to find our soldier and throwing my arms around his neck were utterly exhilarating and thrilling. Almost - just almost - makes the whole stupid deployment worth it.
S.
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