The Jeep hitch installation as a solution to deployment

Random purchases have the power to taken my daily experience from hopeless to hopeful; today's purchase and installation of a hitch on my Jeep is one of these purchases. While my husband prepares to leave in four days for a year in Iraq I continue to prepare for a year as a single parent. Arranging the purchase of the hitch brings me one step closer to having a rear mount bike carrier. The rear mount bike carrier gives me the freedom to pack the kids up with the bikes and head to undiscovered places to ride and explore. This will pass the time for them. It will exhaust them beyond their sadness and feelings of abandonment, missing their Dad. Anywhere. At any time. Simple. Simple. Simple. If only this situation were this simple.

Lee's service to the Army National Guard has prepared me for my role as a single parent in many ways. He has been away at least 4 months each year since he joined and sometimes more. Last year it was 5 months and this year he has been gone at least 3 months already although it may be more (it may be less). However, this time there is a different feel to my role here at home. The distance is greater. The absence is longer. The communication is more complicated. The risk is greater. Iraq is dangerous.

This December with be our 12th wedding anniversary. It is difficult for me to let him go to Iraq. I never approved of Lee joining the Army and have fought my instincts daily in effort to support his service. We have a daughter who is ten and will finish her last year of elementary school while he is gone and will also start middle school before he returns. We have a son who turns 8 on the day he deploys who has slept with me for the past three weeks while he was away at training and cried nearly every night wanting him to return. None of the absences we have experienced in the past 6 years (not even the 7 month basic training where I sold our home in Oregon, moved us Florida and started nursing school) feel as big as seeing Lee off this weekend.

It is overwhelming, the last dinner, the last time to have help with the dogs, the last time he can read to the kids, the last joke, the last kiss..etc. As much as I hope and believe that he will return safely there is a gut wrenching fear of the unknown. Fear that he might not return. Fear that when he does he will be an emotional wreck, not the man I married (or the man he has become). Fear that the Army will not take good care of him and his soldiers. Fear that I will never get over the fact that I wish he had never chosen the Army over us. Or better yet, fear that I will never be able to see it any other way. Perception is everything.

So for today, my vision is a little more optimistic than the above might suggest. The hitch will bring the kids and I freedom to hit the rode. Freedom to do some exploring when we can. We will keep busy. The year will fly - Lee will return in a year.

Pitures of the Hitch and Bike Mount to follow!