For Deployment and For Stateside

by Julia Seymour

This year, on Good Friday, when many of my colleagues were having noonday services remembering Jesus’ crucifixion, I was going through a different ordeal. While it wasn’t physical torture, the emotional and spiritual pain of dropping my husband off for a nine-month deployment to Iraq had its own nuances and added a different dimension to what I was casually calling “Lousy Friday.” On that day, I also reflected on Jesus’ seven last words from the cross, but within the context of my current experience.

“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

The whole morning (and in the week before), each moment with my husband was a glimpse of something we would not do together for another nine months. As we drive through the Fort Richardson security gate together that morning, I try not to think about this being our last five minutes together. When we reach the hangar where the Company is gathering, my husband becomes the commanding officer (CO). His focus becomes the many, many questions that his soldiers and their spouses have for him. I will fade into the background. Later that night, I receive an e-mail from another wife, asking why I didn’t stay to see the soldiers leave (a process that takes about five hours). I gently reply that I had to go to work and I could not stay. Polite replies are a requirement of the CO’s wife. I do not snipe back that I could not stay because he was busy paying attention to everyone else’s wife. But I want to.

“Today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Though the specter of never being together again is always with us, we rarely speak of it. As my husband gets his luggage out of my car, I look around at the snow-covered mountains, the clear sky and the still-frozen ground. I hold his Diet Pepsi and sunflower seeds. I tell myself, “You will not cry.” When I hear of spouses who cheat during deployment, who run through the bank account, who break down or initiate divorce, I feel confused. None of these things occurs to me. I also find myself in a different place than most others. Though this is not always the case, within our Company, there are no other women who have careers (no nurses, teachers, bankers, lawyers, etc.). Most of the other women who work have pink-collar or blue-collar jobs. To these mostly strict Roman Catholic or fundamentalist wives, I am strange and different: “The major’s wife is a pastor. What does she do?” The pressures and responsibilities of our jobs bind my husband and me together. A phone call in the night could be for either of us. Midnight approval of search and rescue flights? Major Seymour’s call. Midnight meeting of the family after search and rescue? Reverend Seymour’s call.

“Woman, behold thy son.”

The week before the deployment, my husband and I learned that I am pregnant with a boy. It’s our first baby. An unexpected pregnancy we learned about two days before Christmas, we have had to just shrug our shoulders at the well-meaning people who say, “Oh, this will be so hard.” It’s unbelievably painful for me to think about laboring to bring our child into the world without my husband there. It’s so painful for my husband that he rarely mentions it. He has said how upset he is and then the topic was closed. This morning, he pats my rounded belly and says, “I look forward to meeting him. Gestate well, my son.” We do not look at each other to avoid seeing the tears in each other’s eyes.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

We hug one last time and whisper, “I love you.” Then he goes into the hangar and I get back in my car and drive off the Post. We do not look back. We do not run to one another for one last hug. Our loins are girded, our courses set and we will not see one another again, in person, until late December (Defense Secretary Robert Gates be willing). I do not cry in the car. In a bright moment of self-care, I scheduled a massage for myself for this day, so that I will be able to be composed at my own church service in the evening. As I lay on my side on the massage table, tears run down my face—pooling on the thin sheet. I did not get married to be alone every other year. I did not get married to constantly think about my husband’s death. I never dreamed, imagined, aspired to be this kind of wife. But it’s the wife I am and the life I lead.

“I thirst.”

There is a numbness that settles in, about two weeks into deployment. I am myself, but not fully. I feel a weird detachment that is difficult to describe, like I am only about 3/4 of my normal self. When my husband is not there, I am not the wife I want to be, which is part of my personhood. Thus, my whole self aches for the wholeness that comes from being together. I am a unity-candle-hating, be-yourself-promoting, truth-seeking woman—but I cannot deny that in marrying, I tied myself to someone else, whose own being is now an integral part of who I am. I certainly can function on my own. I take care of the house, I go to work, I will have a baby—but I experience a very post-Eden reality: This is not the way things were supposed to be.

“It is finished.”

Daily, I field questions from people about what the conditions in Iraq are like, what my husband does, how often I hear from him, etc. I try to smile and answer, but sometimes it is painful. “I usually get an e-mail from him each day” sticks in my throat when I have heard nothing for three days. “It’s hot” belies my fears when headlines report the deadliest day for troops in Iraq in a year. “He flies cargo planes” does not begin to express that he pilots un-air-conditioned, unarmored old blocky planes that are not high fliers. I also smile, kindly, at “He’s doing God’s will”, “We pray for his safety” and “Maybe he’ll come home sooner than expected.” I pray to make it through each day, that the Spirit will carry the things I’m afraid to say away from me, that we will be reunited. I hope for restoration of the temple of my house, the re-communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the reuniting of bodies and the life of the post-deployment world to come.

“Into thy hands, Lord, I commend my spirit.”

At 10:30 pm on Good Friday, I arrive back home. I pet the dog and take my prenatal vitamins with a small snack. I go upstairs and fill the humidifier. I lie down on my right side and look at the empty bed beside me. I sniff my husband’s pillow, eager to absorb his smell before it fades. I close my eyes and fall asleep alone, for the first night of many to come.

The Reverend Julia Seymour cares for God's little flock at the Lutheran Church of Hope (ELCA) in Anchorage, Alaska. Her baby is due in August and her husband is due home in late December. She copes through the grace of God, the support of friends and dreams of future margaritas.