A First for Everything

As the holiday season becomes more evident this year it brings a sadness to my heart. It reminds me of precious memories that have pasted, of family gone and of family present. I now begin to understand what my Mother must have felt as my brother and I became adults with our own families to worry about, forgetting the family we grew up with. Going about our lives, not realizing what we were leaving behind. I look at my 4 grown children and wonder where the years have gone. I am now the Grandmother waiting for that phone call, those precious moments when I am remembered. But I deviate from my original thoughts. This is another first for my family. My youngest, my sailor will be spending his first Thanksgiving without any family around. This was his choice, this time, so he would have more time during Christmas to be with us. My heart breaks a little more knowing this. My, how he has become such a wonderful a young man in the short weeks he has been in the Navy. Yes, we have spent holidays apart, but he was with family, so I was comforted by this knowledge. But this year alone? I only hope that he will know how much he will be missed and how much my thoughts will be of him. I am comforted in the knowledge he is in the USA this year. I am well aware of the men and women that will be in other countries alone without family, fighting this awful war that we are in. I know of the heartache that their families feel, for you see, my Son-in-law of less than a year is over in Afghanistan fighting and will not be home for Thanksgiving or for Christmas this year. I see my daughter day after day worry about what is going on over there and when the next call from her husband will come. So, yes, I am thankful that my son is here in the USA spending Thanksgiving alone. Am I wrong? Am I selfish? Or is this normal?
I think of Thanksgivings and Christmases past and remember his smiling face. Watching him eat his favorite dishes each holiday. I wonder how he will feel, how he will cope, what will he eat this year. I do not know how as his Mother, I am going to cope. My heart already aches to see him, to touch him, to........ This is the first of many holidays that we will be apart, so this will be a bitter sweet one. Proud of his emerging into a wonderful man, making his own choices, but saddened that the little boy is no longer. This man, this Sailor does not need his mother to make the world right. He has been taught to make his own decisions, to understand the choices that he makes. I can only hope that Mother Navy will take care of MY Son, keep him safe, and stand behind any decision he will make. Because the human Mother will be watching very closely, THIS Holiday and all the days to come.
Who ever reads this, I know your pray for the safe return of our men and women away from home, far away, But also remember the ones that are here just starting the journey in the military and their first of many holiday's to come alone without family. I know I pray for them along with the men and women over seas fighting, especially my son-in-law in the front lines, making it possible for We Americans to have this holiday.