the soldier-shaped hole

He left in January 2004.  Me and my buddy Lorraine, just the two of us... we adjusted.  We did everything together.   We had play dates and attended church functions and started new projects.  For awhile at the beginning, everyone we knew asked about my husband and whether we had heard from him.  But eventually, it became pretty normal for me to be by myself in places where others had husbands.  The gaping hole where he had been slowly became less obvious. ..to other people, at least.  His family, his little girl, and especially his wife, always felt the hole.

Spring 2004, on loneliness:

My predicament must seem like a little problem to many people.  Many times, it seems that way to me as well.  I have a beautiful daughter to take care of, friends and family not too far away, a comfortable house, and every material thing I could want.  But my husband is at war.  I am not quite a widow, but I do not feel like a normal married woman, either.  I am parenting alone all of a sudden, but still a wife.  I am denied most of the comforts of marriage, while the burdens are amplified....God has united us so that we are “bone of bone, flesh of flesh,” but we are not together. 

            Of course it hurts to be separated.  We are torn in two.  Even as I desire the comfort of others in this time of need, I know that such comfort cannot fill the hole in me.  No amount of new friends, sweet little children, new projects, or fanatical busy-ness will replace my husband.  What I need is my husband.  What I want is my husband.  An entire half of me is missing, and I grieve.  I cannot go to him, and he cannot come to me.  I cannot even call him.  How I would love just to hear his voice tonight. 

Even now, after seven years of my soldier safely stateside, I often think of this man as the husband-God-brought-back-to-me. 

 May God strengthen all people whose hearts have a hole where a soldier should be.