Memorial Day!

I´m sure that if you looked at your calendar today, you have probably noticed that today is Memorial Day! Today is a day that we set aside on our calendar to honor, respect and think about the people that have sacrificed so much or even their lives for their service to their country.

I have quite a few people in my family that have served in the military, so this holiday and ones like it, such as Veteran´s Day, have always warranted a lot of much-deserved respect from me and my other family members. This year, however, that respect is getting magnified. Off the top of my head, I can think of 5 people in my family that have served in the military. I´m sure that there are tons of others that I don´t even know about or remember. It´s always something that I´ve been very proud to say about my family, that I have military lineage. What more noble profession is there than to serve your country?

This year though, the tables have turned. Three of those 5 people that I mentioned earlier, I never even met. They were my great-uncles Don and Ron and my Grandpa Jack. They all passed away years before I was born. Still, I was proud to be a part of their lineage. The other people live very far away and I don´t see or hear from them very often. So, even though the respect and admiration has always been there for them, it´s been less personal because I never got to see their sacrifices first-hand.

If you have read any of my previous blog posts, you know that my husband is currently away at boot camp and will be gone for about another 10 weeks. For me, I still don´t think that the concept of him being in the military has completely sunk in yet. But with all of the love that has been given for the military on things like Facebook or on television commercials, it really started to sink into my brain. Although my husband being in the U.S. Army still is a foreign concept, I feel so much pride when I tell people about his sacrifices and what he is being put through.

Now, I am not only witnessing the sacrifices that someone in the armed forces has to go through and deal with, I am a part of them. I´m a small part but a part nonetheless. It really puts things into perspective. Anyone can say that joining the navy, the marines, the army or any military branch is hard and worth respecting; it´s another thing to see those sacrifices first-hand and deal with the heartache of waiting for your soldier to come home safely. Then and only then can you really understand.

So now I think about a day like this, Memorial Day, and realize that after he graduates and he really starts his army career, this holiday will be for people like him and his friends. I am not a religious woman but I am praying to the universe that no matter what he will be safe and not have to ever go into any sort of a war situation. That is the only thing that I can think of that I truly wouldn´t be able to handle.

But even though he hasn´t been through any sort of war situation yet, he still deserves all of the respect and support in the world for himself and for everyone else with him at boot camp right now. So despite what a lot of people think, it is not National Barbecue Day. I know that I feel as if I´m going through my own personal hell right now, so I can only imagine what every other military family whose sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, etc, must be feeling, knowing that their loved-ones are in places like Iraq and that they aren´t safe like my husband is.

I heard a saying earlier today that really spoke to me, ¨We are the home of the free because of the brave.¨ Remember the brave men and women who gave up their families, their home, their safety, their comfort and in so many cases, their lives, so that you could wake up every morning and go to work, the beach or Disneyland. It doesn´t matter how you choose to spend your time. Just know that a lot people sacrificed a lot so that you could enjoy each and every day of your life to the fullest potential. Remember that, because everyday life isn´t perfect but you are free because of the military´s sacrifices and they never asked for anything in return.

There is nothing that I want more right now than to have my husband home but he needs to do this and we will both have to sacrifice some more time apart so that he can serve his country. It still continues to be hard but hey... sounds like life to me.

Noah Wrote Allie 365 Letters, So I Got This.

                                                 Our third prom together. :)

Most of you all know Nicholas Sparks´ infamous love story, The Notebook. It´s one of this current generation´s favorite love stories. Though I don´t love the movie/book nearly as much as every other girl my age seems to, I can appreciate the beauty and message of true love conquering all.

See, in the story, Noah and Allie fall in love and are separated once Allie moves away. Noah, is not ready for the relationship to end and decides to write her a letter every day for a year. Now that´s commitment. Allie never gets the letters and obviously, never replies back but that´s not important right now. The important part is the act of writing the letters themselves. 

I´m sure that most of you are now wondering how this story pertains to my life and no, I´m not writing a very belated review of The Notebook. See now that my husband has left for boot camp, we cannot communicate freely like we did before. I can´t call him, text him, Skype him, etc. However, I can write him letters and I plan to do so every single day.

So like Noah, I am relying on the written word to relay my thoughts, feelings and stories about my day to the person that I love. I feel like after this experience is done and over with, I´m going to have a new appreciation for this movie. I actually wrote the first letter to him last night and it ripped my heart out. I wanted to hear his voice. I wanted to tell him these things to his face. I wanted to see him smile as I told him these stories. Clearly, this was not enough for me. 

It was an extremely emotional process and I had not anticipated how hard that it was really going to be. With every stroke of my hand, the hole in my heart got bigger as I ached for my husband. I gained a new respect for Noah. It made me wonder how I was going to be able to do this every day for two months. I knew that it was supposed to get better with time because time heals all wounds. But at that moment, it really didn´t seem like anything would make it better, even time. 

But I started thinking and I remembered The Notebook. I thought to myself, ¨Noah wrote Allie 365 letters, so I got this." I didn´t have to do nearly as much because our time apart wouldn´t be nearly as long as theirs was. It made me feel a little bit more at ease with the situation. Heck, they didn´t even have access to all of the other types of communication that I do. No matter how bizarre or irrational this parallel is, it brought me so much comfort. 

So even though it kills me to be separated from him and I can only do/say so much through letters, Noah did it, so I can do it too. I also feel like I wouldn´t appreciate our relationship or our sacrifices nearly as much if we didn´t have some form of hardship to get through. It really allows you to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Through sacrifice comes hardship and from hardship comes compassion. That´s how I see it, anyway.

So I know that this will not be nearly enough communication or comfort for the two of us but if this was easy, everyone would do it and it wouldn´t be such a big accomplishment for him. He really needs to be recognized for doing what most people I know are too scared to do, even if it does mean that we can´t be together right now. He truly is the bravest person that I know and I miss him every second that we are not together. But we will get through this and come out a stronger couple than before because we were separated. Time apart is hard and it isn´t fair but hey... sounds like life to me.