Our Last Hours

"Finally, after months of preparation, changes in deployment dates, and what seems like an endless trudge to the slaughterhouse, the deployment arrives.  The weeks and days leading up to this feel like a loss of color-- everything I see is in shades of gray." -- Angela Ricketts, No Man's War: Irreverent Confessions of an Infantry Wife

Hectic, emotional and draining are the words I would use to describe this past week.   Monday evening and Tuesday morning were spent running last minute errands, unloading Adam's truck, which looked like a mini tornado had passed through, doing laundry, making calls, packing, repacking, and trying to make our last night at home together as normal as possible.  We dropped the boys, as Adam likes to refer to our pups, off at my mom's house Tuesday morning and headed to Great Clips for Adam's haircut.  This has become one of our weird little rituals that we share on days that Adam leaves town for trainings, because it is always during our last hour spent together.  Then it was North to Georgetown and over to Fort Hood to purchase a few essential items for the deployment.

We ran around Fort Hood like headless chickens comparing bags at different stores and remembering last minute items.  "Oh shit, I forgot this," was the most commonly used statement throughout this "quick" stop.  We finally got back to the car after Adam purchased an Otter Box for his laptop, which I said and knew would be too small, only to try it out and realize that we needed to go back into the store to exchange it because guess what...it was too small!

Adam, this is your reminder to always listen to me, because I am always right.  

Finally we made it on the road to Kilgore around 4:30 in the afternoon, making several necessary pitstops for food, coffee and restroom breaks.  After what seemingly felt like the longest 4 hours we finally pulled into Kilgore around 9:30 and headed to the armory for a quick check-in.  Then we headed to our new home, the Holiday Inn Express.

According to Adam's orders he should have left for Fort Bliss early this morning.  After a bit of confusion the departure date, we believed, was changed to early Saturday morning.  Now we know that this information was incorrect and that he will definitely be leaving tomorrow evening with the rest of his guys.  Unfortunately the uncertainty and last minute changes are not surprising at all and honestly I have not had my heart set on a certain date because I knew that it could change at any time.  Tonight and tomorrow will most definitely be hard but I feel lucky to have more time with Adam, even if that means for only a few more hours.  

So as of now I believe we have reached the so-called calm before the deployment storm during which we will spend our final 24 hours together.  Yesterday Adam had to work an incredibly long day at the armory from 6 AM to about 10 PM with a couple breaks in between, during which he so thoughtfully brought me breakfast and dinner.

He's a keeper!

Luckily, today he will be getting off earlier as we have the Kilgore Send-Off event this afternoon at 4 PM for his Battalion.  This means we will be able to enjoy our last evening together.  I am not sure how tomorrow will go and honestly I'm trying my best not to think about it too much until it is absolutely necessary.  For now I just want to focus on spending the last few hours that we have together as best we can.  

I would really appreciate it if you all would keep Adam in your thoughts and prayers as he travels on an 11 hour bus ride to El Paso tomorrow.