The Last Goodbye, Take 2

Upon arriving in the airport, we were informed that there was bad weather in Atlanta, and that my flight was delayed. This time I had chosen to fly into and out of Jacksonville, instead of Raleigh, and because of the size of the Jacksonville Airport (3 gates), they only have the smaller planes, so you ALWAYS have to have a connecting flight. The nice thing about flying out of a TINY airport in a town that is made up of about 95% military families, is that they allowed Steve to come through security and sit with me at the gate while I waited for my plane. I was supposed to fly out at 3:30, and was still sitting in the airport in Jacksonville at 6:00. I think this was the first time that I had finally convinced myself to not think about the good-bye, until it was actually happening. Usually the whole day leading up to it was just torture for me. I would cry off and on all day. And although I would always tell myself, “don’t think about it until it’s actually happening”, it never worked. Until this time, surprisingly.

While we were sitting in the airport, we played games on Steve’s phone, and probably grossed people out with our PDA, but we didn’t really care. I don’t remember what time I actually boarded the plane, sometime within an hour and half after 6:00. The plane was packed since it was actually 2 flights worth of passengers, and somehow I ended up being 1 of 2 people who didn’t have someone sitting next to me. For that, I was very thankful. I fell asleep, as I usually do, probably even before takeoff and woke up mid-flight completely nauseous. We were (obviously) getting closer to Atlanta, and the turbulence was terrible! Not only was it stormy out, but we were also in one of the smaller planes that experiences turbulence every time the wind blows. I kept hoping and hoping that we were going to be landing soon before I puked all over. I made it, and landed in the Atlanta airport to find the busiest place on the planet. I found my gate (always a big concern for me when I fly) and sat down, only to have some guy tell me that the gate to Minneapolis had changed.

So, we walked down to the new gate location, sat there for a while, only to find out that it had changed again. I FINALLY got settled in the third, and final gate change, and listened to the entire airport cheer for their respective times as the Super Bowl played on every single TV in the airport. I was supposed to make it back to Minnesota around midnight, but was still sleeping in the airport in Atlanta at 11. My parents stayed at a friends house in the cities while waiting for me. At about midnight, we all boarded the plane—this time 4 flights worth of people, plus a few more whose flights had been cancelled until the next day, HOPING there were extra seats left. The whole flight was full, and it was a HUGE plane. I, of course, slept the whole way once again.

I think I finally landed at the airport in Minneapolis at about 2 am, and went down to baggage claim. I called my parents and informed them I had finally landed, and I sat there and waited for my bag to start its right around the carousel. I stood there and watched tons and tons of bags circle the thing, and never once caught sight of mine. They had lined some bags up that had somehow taken a different route and ended up in Minneapolis sooner. I walked up and down the rows of bags, checked the carousel again, and then started panicking a little.

I kept going between the carousel, and the door to the pick up/drop off zone to see if my bag had showed up, and if my parents had arrived yet. After my parents finally got there, I tearfully told them that my bag was missing. So, mom came and stood in the baggage claim line with me behind the 20 other people whose bags were also missing, and we were told that according to their records, my bags had never left Jacksonville. How that happened, I have no idea. Like I said, the Jacksonville airport has 3 gates—you could honestly WATCH them take your bag and put it on the plane. I didn’t, because I didn’t really think it was necessary, especially since they had 3 hours to get it from the inside of the airport to the plane that was right next to the building.

Somehow they screwed it up though, and I was without my bag, and without all of my daily necessities. We took our little baggage claim ticket, in place of my luggage, and headed for the car. I’m pretty sure I cried more in the car until I finally fell asleep once again. Now I think it seems silly to cry over delayed baggage, but I guess 12+ hours of sitting in airports/airplanes AFTER saying good-bye to your husband for the last time before he goes to Afghanistan will make you cry over silly things.

I slept most of the way home, and woke up once arriving in my hometown. I sat up, looked out the window, and saw…nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was a blizzard out—the wind was blowing ridiculously hard and it was blowing snow like crazy. We couldn’t see more than 5 feet in front of the car. Plus it was dark outside, and  it had been blowing for a long time, so the country roads we live on were drifted like you wouldn’t believe. Apparently it had been blowing like this—complete white-out conditions since we had gotten off the free way about 45 miles ago, but we lucked out and ended up right behind a semi, and dad was able to follow the semi going at a reasonable speed until it turned the opposite way in town, and left us fending for ourselves. We got part way down a road on the way home—going about 5 the whole time, and decided to turn around realizing that the drifts were going to be WAY too bad. We tried an alternate route, and although it didn’t make the visibility any better, it was at least a road that drifted less than the others.

We continued to drive about 5 miles an hour, never really sure whether we were in the middle of the road, or riding the edge of the ditch, but with 4 sets of eyes, we managed to stay well enough on the road that we could keep going. I don’t think we got home until about 6am. I was supposed to work the next day at about 9, so I went straight to bed, and woke up in a couple hours. The wind still hadn’t died down, but it was at least light outside, so I started my drive to Marshall. It took me about 1 hour to drive 10 miles. And it was that point that I realized that it was a really stupid idea to keep going—my friends had told me that it was the same way down there, and I wasn’t about to find out if it was the same way in the middle too. I turned around and started driving back home. After about another hour worth of driving, I finally made it back home, and spent the day recovering from the day before/that morning.

It was probably the most stressful flying experience I have ever had in my life, but I had finally gotten a good-bye I was satisfied with. One that would last me until I got to see him again.

The Impromptu Trip

I’m pretty sure I slept the whole way home. It was the easiest thing to do during a car ride like that! Three hours is WAY too long to sit and think after a goodbye like that. So I just slept. I feel bad that I wasn’t more social with my mother and father-in-law. I don’t think I hardly spoke to them the whole way home. Although, I think they understood. If I remember correctly, my new sister-in-law (Steve’s brother’s wife) said that’s usually what she did after dropping her Marine husband off at the airport too. There’s just something about letting your mind slip into subconsciousness where what is actually going on in real life, (usually) has no effect on what happens in your dreams.

For the next few days, the goodbye at the airport continued to replay again and again in my mind. It was so quick, and short, I could hardly remember it. I had already forgotten what the last hug felt like, what the last kiss tasted like, and even what our last words were—knowing that it wasn’t “I love you”. I think that if he had just been going back to North Carolina, I would have been satisfied with the way things worked out. But since he was going to Afghanistan, on a deployment that there was a chance he wouldn’t make it back from, I couldn’t be satisfied with it, and I couldn’t let it go.

I couldn’t let him go to Afghanistan without tell him one last time, to his face, that I loved him. So, within a couple days, I decided that I would never be satisfied with that goodbye, and that I needed to do something about it. Two weeks later, I was on my way to the airport once again, this time with Steve’s mom (and another lady, who was also flying somewhere) and with my bags packed. I skipped out on the second week of classes, and headed to North Carolina to see Steve one more time, and hopefully conclude with a “satisfying” goodbye.

I got a little more “daring” with this flight, and decided to fly straight into Jacksonville, which meant a connecting flight in Charlotte. I made sure there was about a 4 hour gap between my flights so I could be sure to make it! And I did! I think I could have made it from one gate to the other in about 20 minutes, but I’ve really become accustomed to sitting in airports for long periods of time, and I don’t mind it one bit (it helps that I’m kind of a “people watcher”).

I got there at about 4, and ended up waiting at the airport for about an hour until someone could come and get me. Steve ended up having to work late, so he sent his friend—the one with a car that is willing to do pretty much anything—to pick me up and take me to the hotel. And when I say Steve had to work late, I don’t mean, until 6ish. I’m pretty sure he didn’t get to the hotel until 11:30 that night. I remember being RIDICULOUSLY antsy, and checking my phone about every 2 seconds hoping to see a message informing me he was finally off work.

I also know that my attention span was the shortest it had ever been—I had all kinds of “entertainment” packed for my long wait in the airport, and the plane rides (although I don’t think I actually took out any of it until I got to the hotel) and I couldn’t concentrate on ANYTHING. I think I finally fell asleep, but even when I woke up he wasn’t done with work yet. It seemed like the longest 7 hours of my life.

He finally got done with work and made it to the hotel, and when he opened the door, I don’t think he was even able to set his bag down before I hugged him and didn’t let him go for about 5 minutes. It was SO good to see him again after that disastrous first good-bye.

He had to work every day, so I had to stay in the hotel room by myself while he was at work, and it drove me absolutely insane to sit there by myself. Before long, the weekend finally came and Steve was actually able to stay with me. One of the nights, we went to one of Steve’s friends houses—a friend that I had heard stories about, but hadn’t yet met. This was my first encounter with another military spouse that was going through the same things that I was, at the same time. We mostly sat around and talked, and despite having a double ear infection, I loved every minute of it. I was so happy to finally meet Steve’s friends and people that I had heard about so often.

The next day I spent nursing my ear infections, and we pretty much hung out in the hotel room all day and watched movies. Which was fine with me because it was not only time spent with him, but time spent with him that was completely unexpected until about a week earlier.

After about 4 days at the hotel, we packed up all of our stuff and moved it to the cabanas  on base.  These were slightly nicer than the hotel and it was MUCH better for me because I felt LOADS safer being outside by myself while Steve was at work. The cabanas had a kitchen so we bought all kinds of food and I cooked while Steve was at work. Staying in the cabanas also meant that we were closer to where Steve worked, which meant less driving time for him, and more time together for us.

Most days Steve would get up ridiculously early to go to work, and I usually couldn’t get back to sleep after he left. Only a few days of being married and sleeping in the same bed made me wonder how I ever fell asleep without someone next to me. So, I would get up and watch the sunrise over the ocean, and then usually head inside to start making dinner.

During that time, we also had some of his friends out for supper so I was able to meet more people that I had heard stories about and seen videos of. I found that they were just as hilarious as I had imagined they would be. I could immediately see why they and Steve were such good friends.

I don’t really remember what all we did during this trip out there, although I know it wasn’t much. We did some walking on the beach, but I don’t think we spent any time doing sightseeing—we didn’t really want to. We were lucky enough to be given extra, unexpected time together, and we wanted to spend as much of it just enjoying that time together as we could.

Sometime during the week, we had a sudden army of ants that decided to make a home in a crack in the wall in the bathroom. Now, initially, I was thinking “how on earth am I going to kill all these ants?!”, because when I say army, I mean there were hundreds of them. As I was about to start killing them a small area at a time with toilet paper, Steve says “I have an idea”. Not entirely sure what his big idea was, I stayed in the bathroom, mesmerized by how the ants seemed to be multiplying before my eyes. I heard him dig around in his bag a little, and then in the kitchen drawer. All of a sudden, back he comes with 3 items: a spoon, a bottle of hand sanitizer, and a lighter.

What we did from there is pretty self explanatory, I think. What you may not know is that during Steve’s first deployment, he and his friends went through LOADS of hand sanitizer. But not for what it’s actual use is. They used it to light things on fire—including their own body parts. To see this and other crazy things they did on their deployment, you can go HERE.

Anyway, we put the hand sanitizer on the spoon, lit it on fire, and burned lines of ants off the wall. We killed them all quite quickly, and then sealed off the crack in the wall they were coming through with toothpaste—apparently Steve had done this before in the barracks. Who knew toothpaste worked as caulking mechanism?!

Our final, rather humorous adventure from that trip occurred one of my last mornings there. Either the morning on the day before I was supposed to leave, or the morning of the day I was supposed to leave, I talked Steve into getting up early with me (he didn’t have to work) and watching the sunrise over the ocean on the deck. I had gone out on the deck to watch the sunrise every morning we were there, and since I stayed on the bench next to the back door, I never found it necessary to lock the door, so I left the door that locks automatically upon closing, wide open, and just closed the screen door.

Well, Steve apparently found it necessary to close the door that automatically locks (knowing that it automatically locked) and assumed that I had the key. Immediately after he closed the door, I asked why he closed it to which he responded “I dunno”. I said, “Well you have the key, right?” And of course, he didn’t and neither did I. So, we knew right away that we were locked out. Thus started Steve not enjoying the sunrise with me, and instead trying to find a way to break into the cabana. It was ridiculously early in the morning, so we didn’t really want to have to walk down to the campground where the person in charge stays, wake them up, and ask them to come down and unlock our door for us.

He tried each of the windows hoping that one of them was unlocked, and after a whole sunrise worth of trying, we walked down to the campsite, and luckily found that the person on duty was already awake. He gave us a ride back to the cabana, and unlocked our door. Upon getting back into the cabana, we checked the windows again to find that they WERE unlocked and that, if easily pushed up (not panicked, rather hard pushing, like Steve was doing) they slid open quite easily from the outside.

The last couple days I was out there, we spent relaxing together. My flight was scheduled .

on a Sunday and Steve had the weekends off, so we were able to spend the last couple days together. Plus, after the last time I was out there, we wanted to make sure that Steve was going to be able to take me to the airport