THE LONGEST TWO YEARS: The Hardest Part Was Letting Go

Life in the military is never an easy one. I knew this going in. I was prepared. My parents and my life experiences had taught me to be strong in the face of difficult times. I had survived through three deployments, once being involuntarily seperated from my husband for 20 months. I had lived in a foreign country twice and returned to the States unscathed. I had dealt with infertility, infidelity and obesity. But nothing....nothing had prepared me for 2010.

As I was abruptly awakened on a cold German winter's night in late 2009, I knew the phone call from my Mom was not a good one. I could hear it in her voice, even though I was still foggy from my sleep. She explained to me in a shaky voice that she had been diagnosed with a rare disease, Wegener's Granulomatosis. An x-ray had revealed numerous masses in her lungs. She was to undergo surgery in January and then begin an aggressive round of chemotherapy and steroids thereafter. I reassured her that everything was going to be okay. I tried to maintain control; my quivering voice on the verge of breaking into hysterics. My Mother was our Matriarch. She was my best friend. I talked to her nearly everyday...yes, even during the last 3 years while living in Germany. I told her that I would be there for her. And I would! As I hung up the phone, tears exploded from my eyes. My husband, who had been listening in the dark, wrapped his arms around me and squeezed tightly. He agreed that I should return to Oklahoma to be there for my Mom.

In January, my husband packed up and left for a three month school in Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri. As my Mother underwent surgery back home, I made preparations for the trip to Oklahoma. We lived off-post in an German house. We had our rent, German utilities, phone and internet service, and a cat that would need to be taken care of for the next three months until my husband returned from school. I had to make sure that after paying those in advance, I still had enough in savings to buy two plane tickets and enough to sustain three residences (germany, hubby's school and my mom's) for awhile. It took some elaborate planning, but I did it. I withdrew my 9 year old son from school in February 2010 and we were on the plane the following week. With 5 huge suitcases in tow, we were headed for "home". I didn't know how long we would be there, I just knew that we HAD to be there.

Once settled, I enrolled my son in the local school and began the HONOR of taking care of the one who had taken such great care of me. A beautiful, redheaded woman with a heart of gold. My best friend. She was recovering from the lung biopsy surgery and hadn't yet begun chemo. She was still her usual self, her quick wit and stubbornness still intact. She was up bright and early every morning listening to the birds, talking to God and drinking her coffee. She would then make her Grandson a traditional country breakfast of bacon, eggs, gravy and biscuits. She did it every morning. When I complained that she didn't have to do that for him everyday, she quickly let me know that "she'd do it if she wanted to!" I didn't argue with that. It wasn't long before the chemo and steroids began to take their toll. With her face nearly unrecognizable from the shiny balloon effect of the steroids, her quick wit began to fade. Tiredness consumed her as she struggled to breathe. Her stubbornness was failing her more and more each day. After three months of battling her disease, her body succumbed to bacterial pneumonia. The chemo and steroids had left her without defenses to war the raging infection within her body. She became septic and passed suddenly and unexpectedly. Thanks be to God that peacefully and without much suffering, she did go. On a breezy June morning, we laid her to rest.

With the profound loss still resonating within me, I longed to fly back to Germany. I desperately needed the comfort and strength of my husband's arms enveloping me. The Army had other plans. Upon completion of my husband's three month school in March, he was selected for Recruiting. We had chosen Oklahoma as our top preference so that we could be nearer to my Mom and family. With bittersweet news, my husband informed me that we had received orders to a Recruiting battalion in Oklahoma. He was due to arrive in a couple of months. It was decided that my son and I would remain in Oklahoma. It turned out to be a blessing as I was still needed back home. Since my Mother passed without a having a will, my sister and I had to retain a probate lawyer. My Mother had owned her land and home, plus land my Grandmother had willed to her. It was decided that the land would go to her three children. With large medical bills looming, we needed to take quick action.  We could not imagine selling the land on which we had been raised. Land that held so many happy memories from our childhood. We had to pay off the remaining medical bills in order to prevent the forced sale of the land. Also, we made a provision stating that our Mother's common-law husband could remain in the home as long as he wished. A home they had shared for 24 years. My son, Josh, and I settled into living with my Stepdad as we waited for my husband to clear Germany. Grief was still palpable in the home as we all dealt with the loss in our own way. A couple of months later, my husband arrived. We were informed of his pinpoint assignment a month later and began looking for homes in that area immediately. We were overcrowded in my Mother's home. The tiny, three bedroom mobile home had become too small for my husband, me, our son, our dog, our cat, my stepdad and his two indoor dogs. With Tulsa only a three hour drive from my Mother's, a day trip to view rental properties was planned. During this trip, we found the perfect home. It was the perfect location, size and layout. It had plenty of room outside for our large Mastiff and two horses. The property would not be ready for another month, so it worked for our budget as well. We had not yet received our moving allowances. We signed the lease. Our lives seemed to be picking up from where we had left off. I felt happy for the first time in months.

Then, the Army dropped a bombshell! My husband's paperwork from Germany had not been entirely finished because he was instructed to complete it at his new duty assignment. The new duty assignment did not "remember" talking to him about it (even though he had the individual names of those with whom he had consulted). It would take at least six months to complete the required paperwork. Recruiting school was to begin in one month. Therefore, he would not be able to attend. The Army decided that he would have to be reassigned to another location (hopefully within Oklahoma) where he could fulfill his former military duties. The new orders placed us at a post located twenty minutes from my Mother's home. The place where I grew up near my huge extended family. I was relieved. I felt that this would be a good place to "heal". We began looking for rental properties in the area and signed up for housing. We knew our budget would be tight, since we were not getting the Recruiting pay we had counted on and we were still paying lawyer/medical bills. Out of nowhere, the Army threw us another curve ball. The new orders made the PCS orders from Germany obsolete. When Finance and Accounting calculated our dislocation and other moving allowances, they did not factor in my son and me at all. They did not factor in that we had just made an overseas PCS move. Nope! They calculated it as if my husband was a single soldier moving from Tulsa to his new duty assignment three hours away. The payment we received was very, very low. Not even enough to pay the first month's rent on a place, let alone pay a deposit or set up utitilites. We had pretty much depleted our savings and were behind on payments on some of the bills we owed. My mother had lost her job due to her illness and took a financial blow. I had to put off some of our bills during this time to help her with prescriptions and her utilities (not to mention we still maintained a home in Germany as well). My credit score had gone from a 783 to....well,  let's just say it suffered tremendously.We had extra money from the vehicle we sold in Germany, but we had put that toward the purchase of a new (used) vehicle shortly after my husband had arrived from Germany. We tried to fight the Finance section's determination, but they would not acknowledge my son and me on new orders. They would not reimburse our airline tickets. They would not calculate his move from Germany to Oklahoma. They stayed strong in their position in what they felt was appropriate compensation. We were counting on that money to put us right! Our financial situation was bleak. So, we had to ask my Stepdad if we could live with him in my Mom's house until we could get back on our feet or until military housing became available.

As we all lived crammed into her small home, the loss of our Matriarch still weighed heavily upon us. This home that was once filled with laughter and happiness became an ever-present reminder of what we had lost. A darkness clouded our moods. Tempers flared now and then. We were all trying to make it work, but we were struggling at best. The day came when our household goods could not be held any longer. We had reached the maximum allowed time for storage. The delivery needed to be done within the next three weeks. We had applied for military housing, but the wait list was long. We scrambled up all the extra cash we could, even pawning my jewelry, and we began to look for a rental home. With lawyer/medical bills still needing to be paid, our budget was very limited. We knew that we would have to sacrifice for awhile, but in the end we would own a portion of my Mother's land. Land that had been handed down from my Grandpa. We were doing what we HAD to do. We were doing it for us and the future of our son. It was land we would hand down to him one day.

Our rental search ended the day we told my stepdad about the move. He decided that he would move out instead. His elderly mother had declined in health and needed around-the-clock care. He moved out the day before our household goods arrived. Due to the size of her home and the fact that her belongings still filled it, most of our furniture had to be placed into a storage building. Of course, the Army was not finished with us just yet. We were charged for being overweight on our household goods. In true Army fashion, they had taken it directly out of my husband's paycheck without notification. We tried to fight it because we had two different weight receipts for our stuff, but it was a fruitless effort. After things settled down, we actually began "living" in that home. At some point, housing called to notify us of an available home. We declined. We decided that we were going to live where we were and eventually build a new home where my Mother's once stood. And it was here where we lived for the next year and a half. With my Mother's pictures still on the wall, her home was exactly the way that she left it (with the exception of a few pieces of our furniture now occupying it). *I* felt as if life was being breathed back into it. *I* felt near her when I dusted the teapots she had collected since childhood or while watering the elephant ear plant she'd cared for since 1982. *I*enjoyed sitting on the deck in the morning listening to the birds she loved so much. *I* began to love this home again. *I* felt like I was keeping her memory alive by staying there.

However, the stark reality of it was.....the home was dilapidated from years of neglect. It was not even worth renovating. You could poke your fingers through the walls to the outside in some rooms. Black mold had developed in multiple areas throughout the home. The aging air conditioner was running 24/7 in an attempt to cool the home during the summer. However, some days it would reach 113 degrees INSIDE the home. The electricity bill alone topped out at nearly $400 a month. Most importantly, our son was unhappy in school. He was being bullied relentlessly despite our attempts to MAKE the school handle the matter. And I....I had replace my grief with an unhealthy emotional attachment to "keeping the home alive". I was not, in fact, keeping the memories alive by living in the home. Rather, I was PREVENTING myself from moving on. So....when a series of events at my son's school finally pushed us into filing a Federal complaint against them (after we had exhausted all other avenues), we decided that we NEEDED to move. We did not want to lease or rent off-post since we were still paying the remaining medical bills and catching up on our own finances. We knew our budget would not provide a home off-post in as safe of an environment as it would in military housing. We called Housing to resubmit our names to the list. We were notified two weeks later that a home was available on-post for us. That was quick! I had not expected that. I was stunned even. I was not emotionally ready to seperate from my Mother's home. I was not ready for it to be empty...to never again see the photos of my son proudly hanging in "Grandma's Angel" picture frames upon the wall....or to never be able to open the fridge again and see her favorite coffee still sitting on the shelf where she had left it. I was not prepared to turn my Mother's home into an abandoned house. I was not ready to LET IT GO! I cried off and on for the next two weeks thinking about those things. I felt guilty for leaving. It was as if I was letting her down. I cried even more the day I delicately packed all of her belongings into non-descript brown boxes, seemingly unworthy to hold such treasures. I cried my heart and soul out as I peered around her empty house. There were rectangular outlines on the walls where decades of moments frozen in time were lovingly once displayed. As I sat there, my heart ached to hear her.....to smell her...to feel her once more. Then, I stood up and pulled from all of the strength that she had instilled in me. I pulled it from depths I had never known.....and I walked out of the door, locking it behind me.

Foxy Momma at the Wildlife Refuge with her children.

                                                                            

My Mom and Stepdad...so happy together.

Happy to be expecting her first grandchild.

 

Spoiling that grandbaby!

 

 My Mom, her sisters, grandson and me before traveling to a family reunion in Texas.

Like Grandma Like Grandson

My Mom and brother at his wedding.

 



My Mom pictured two months before she passed away.