Patches of Sunlight
It was June.
We should have known to expect it.
The thunderstorm unleashed its magnificent fury just as our guests were being seated. An outdoor wedding in the Rocky Mountains, rained out, hailed out.
We hurried to the church. Plan B. Guests, flowers, pew bows, ceremony programs, the guestbook, the string quartet’s fine instruments. Thirty minutes of mayhem.
But an hour later, he and I clasped fingertips, spoke sacred words, bound hearts and lives together.
The clouds outside, though still thick and foreboding, allowed patches of blue to break the mass. Brilliant rays of sunlight funneled to the mountains below. It was a beauty we hadn’t expected and we reveled in it as we waved goodbye out the top of our limousine.
We would be together forever. Facing the days ahead hand in hand. Encountering each season side by side.
Except… we wouldn’t.
The man I married that day is my husband, but he is also a Marine.
It is impossible to wake each morning beside a heart’s beloved when an ocean and several continents lie between the two.
Just days ago, our two tiny boys stood beside me as we waved with all our might after a white military bus carrying my beloved, my Marine, to a far away sandy spot.
Afghanistan.
We won’t be able to kiss each other each morning. He won’t open the front door in the evenings. The boys won’t wrestle with him in the living room while I make dinner. Our communication will be limited to phone calls and emails.
Two years ago we were in the middle of another deployment. It was the first one we had experienced as a couple or a family, and the months leading up to deployment day were threaded with anxiety.
How would our hearts stay connected during thirteen months apart?
The voices of other military wives haunted me.
“He came home and I didn’t even know him,” they’d say.”We just grew apart.”
I agonized over this possibility.
Here we are, facing the beginning of the second deployment. I expected to face the same trepidation.
But I haven’t. We haven’t.
Because we know, this time around, that the separation two years ago only brought us closer.
What is it they say?
Separation makes the heart grow fonder?
It’s true.
But it can be conditional.
We were transparent. We wrote long, soul searching emails. We were able to talk on the phone. The most significant breakthrough in our relationship came through those months apart.
Hearts, once bonded, choosing and making effort to remain so bonded… will.
This time, as I say goodbye to the man I love, the fear is kept at bay. Thinking of the months apart for our family still shreds my heart, but overall, peace overwhelms me. Tending for our relationship doesn’t end when we don’t see each other every day. It doesn’t end even when won’t see each other for almost 400 days.
We are together forever. Even when we’re apart.
Day One of our marriage brought the most ferocious storm I had ever seen. I cried, sitting in my white gown, believing the lightning and thunder would be the ruination of our long-awaited day. But there were still tiny blue patches scattered among the clouds, filled with long pillars of radiant sunlight. The storm was still raging, the hail still falling, the wind still whipping.
It wasn’t what we expected, but it was a beauty all its own.
I kiss him goodbye, feel his arms around me for the last time, and know that beauty will show up in this storm of prolonged separation.
It’s been over two thousand days since that Day One, and I’m looking for the sunlight.
Ashleigh Baker from Heart and Home is wife to one brave Marine and two adorable boys (one of whom which my Naomi might snag for herself in 15 years). She’s just made the move from California to Colorado to live out her husband’s deployment near family. Ashleigh’s posts will make you cry as often as you laugh. She writes about her family, her husband and about the current weight loss journey she is on. Oh and this one made me weep. Visit her blog at Heart and Home and follow her on twitter.
Photo by Ashleigh Baker
I woke up this morning as my husband was leaving to work with a heavy heart. First thing that came to mind was his upcoming deployment. For one, I think I might be pregnant for the first time and two, he is leaving in about six months. It will be my first deployment as his wife, second as a relationship. I wonder if I’m going through denial or simply hoping he won’t deploy.
Thank you for writing this. Your courage and strength is something I must learn to have.
I’m so sorry you’re about to go through it again! How long will he be gone? Hoping it’s less than nine months…
And the denial? It lasts up until the very moment he leaves.
Right now they are saying its six months. I’m still hoping they cancel it. I’m still hoping President Obama withdraws troops from Afghanistan now, it might seem a little far fetched, but I’m still hoping.
I cannot imagine being a wife of a military man. It has to be the hardest job! Thank you for allowing your husband to serve his country and making this place a free place to call home. Thank you for all you give up and do for this country as well. Sometimes we forget to thank the wives who give up much in the name of freedom…and give up things we other wives may just take for granit.
Thank you!
Thank you!!
Ashleigh, thank you for sharing your story. First, I want to thank both you and your husband for your sacrifice in serving our country. My prayers are with you and your family.
I also appreciate the message of your post, in remembering to find the beauty in the unexpected! Thanks for the compelling reminder.
I look forward to getting to know you better through your blog!
-Melissa
Storms aren’t always as ugly as we anticipate they’ll be, are they? Thank you for your prayers for us!
I ran right over to her blog, but had to come back and say thanks for the introduction to Ashleigh!
My heart just tore apart and was strengthened all at the same time reading this. I’m so grateful your husband is serving our country, I’m so grateful your family is offering that sacrifice and I’m so grateful you hold your relationship so beautifully. I have a good friend whose husband was in Iraq for two years, and their marriage grew as yours did. She said their emails helped them learn how to speak lovingly all over again.
I pray for his safety, for your safety and for the beautiful ways your marriage will bloom.
YES, the emails! Honestly, we missed our long emails when he came home last time and look forward to them this time. We had to communicate in a purposeful way we aren’t always able to do in the midst of everyday life.
Thank you for sharing. I’ve seen God be so faithful in our marriage. Strengthening it over the last nearly nine years. Our first year of marriage was hard, starting off with my losing my job a month before and ending with me being in a bad car accident a month or so before our first anniversary. Not to mention all the things in between. He is so faithful to the covenant that my husband and I made.
Praying for your husband and your family. Your marriage. Thank you to him and his service. It means a great deal to me. Thank you to you for the sacrifice of not being able to kiss him in the mornings and all the other nuances of marriage and family life.
Having only been married three years when my husband deployed the last time, I had no idea the faithfulness of God to strengthen a marriage, even through difficulty. It’s a beauty all its own.
Thank you for your prayers for our family. We don’t take them for granted.
I can only imagine how hard it must be for you and your kids. My brother-in-law has been in Iraq for the past 12 months, but is now (literally, as I write this) on his way home to his wife, 2 boys and daughter. Praise God! I keep praying that their transition back to “normal” will be an easy one, and your post gives me hope that it can happen.
My prayers go out to you, your family, your marriage, and your husband’s safety and state of mind while he’s away from you. Thank you for the sacrifice you all are making for our country. It can’t be said too many times!
I’m SO excited for them… I’m assuming he’s home now and it just thrills my heart for your brother in law and his family. There is no high like that of seeing him walk off that bus!
Ashleigh – i know you are probably currently looking for your own patch of sunlight today, but please know that you are an amazing example of God’s beauty and sustaining grace.
thank you so much for allowing your heart to be so vulnerable here on this blog. i love you, real life friend.
=)
I love you oodles…
Ashleigh -
Your story is so full of trust and hope! I am praying for you and your family as you go through this next year. I pray that once again this time of separation will lead to a greater knowledge of each other and your relationship will end up stronger than it is now.
Thank you for sharing this and for making such a sacrifice for us!
Thanks so much, sweet Melissa!
Ashleigh,
That’s beautiful, and so full of wisdom. I will be forwarding it to wives in your situation. You spread hope!
Thank you! Hope it’s an encouragement to other military wives.
Wonderful post. I hear her heart, and I honor her sacrifice.
What a beautiful heart for marriage, just as God designed.
Adore you, Ash. This is so lovely. xoxo
Right backatcha, girl.
ashleigh, there is so much beauty in your strength, faith, resolve. so much beauty in your expectancy and love. so much beauty in you.
thank you for sharing your heart in this space. and with me. i’m grateful to know you.
Tears. You are precious to me.
I believe in you both. I thank you for your courage and your faith. A beautiful
love story lived out in real life. You and your family will be in my prayers. Keep
writing. Keep sharing..
Ashleigh -
I’ve read your blog a few times and I just have to say that you’re such an encouragement and inspiration to me…even though my heart aches as I read some of your posts and think about my fiance’s impending 2011 deployment to Afghanistan…we are so looking forward to getting married and finally being able to be together, but we both know it won’t be forever…
[...] changes in our lives (yes, realizing he was about to leave for Afghanistan, but knowing we would continue to grow alongside each other even while he was gone). We can both be highly driven perfectionists, holding ourselves to a standard so lofty it rivals [...]
Thanks for your transparency. Everything that you wrote I felt. I said good bye to my soldier this morning, it’s our first deployment and I am lost. He left for TX then on to Afganistan. Thank you for sharing your story with others, it’s nice to find someone who’s dealing with the same things.
God Bless
[...] Our own Ashleigh wrote a guest post on another site a while back on beauty—the beauty of separation. [...]