Separated from Family

Absence makes the heart grow fonder… or so they say. By the way who are “they” anyway? That’s the subject for another blog.

In 1988, I was stationed at Keesler AFB, Miss., finishing up tech school when I received orders to Loring AFB, Maine. “Maine?” was the first word out of my mouth.

Being southern born and reared, and a former resident of Largo, Florida, I thought there were plenty of bases in the southern United States that would gladly accept me. I put in for Barksdale, Tyndall, MacDill, Patrick, and a host of other “suitable” locations. But the Air Force had other ideas.

The destination petrified me. What would I do “way up there,” literally thousands of miles from my closest friends and relatives?

I did what any 19-year-old would do — made a rash decision. I immediately picked up the phone and asked my girlfriend back home to marry me. Only after she accepted did I tell her about the orders to Maine.

To say the impending move rattled our relationship – barely 2 months old as it was — is an understatement. In the coming weeks, she would decide she didn’t want to move and I decided I didn’t want to marry her. The relationship ended before I ever left the southern United States.

My first six months in Maine were miserable. I was alone. It was frigid. I wanted to go home. In fact, every dollar I could scrape together would go toward a plane trip back home at every available opportunity. I grew to look forward to three-day weekends.

In time, I made some local friends and even got “fixed up” with a local girl. This time, I made no rash decision, and we were married just 11 months after we met.

The honeymoon was short-lived when Saddam Hussein decided to invade Kuwait and I was deployed to Diego Garcia — less than 3 months after the wedding.

Seven months later I returned home to become reacquainted with Tina, my bride.

Four months of “marital bliss” made way for the uncertainly of separation from the military and moving to a town neither of us knew to take a civilian job at a newspaper.

I had just done the same thing to my wife that had been done to me. She got “orders” and had to leave home.

It was just the two of us. I would like to be able to say that we became closer as a result of being so far from our families. To some extent we did. However, the distance also caused a sort of depression. No one likes to be totally cut off from family — no matter how crazy we think they are.

I was working long hours in my new job and she was babysitting my boss’ daughter. We co-miserated and got fat together.

Luckily my parents were only a 7-hour drive away and we made many weekend trips to survive those years in “solitary.”

It wasn’t until we found a small church in rural Alabama that we truly started to feel a little “at home.” All of a sudden we had a “church family” locally.

Today, Tina and I have the best of both. We live in a same town as some family members, and have a wonderful church family to boot. We appreciate the relationships we have because we know what it is like to be “isolated.”

Once we got into church, we realized that our “family” was bigger than we thought. That made all the difference.

May the Blog Be With You.