Learning to Stand Together Again

This isn't the first time I've watched someone I love pack a bag, lace their boots, and leave pieces of their heart behind with us - my fingers trembling as I help fold his clothes, each crease a silent prayer.

This isn't the first time I've stood at the doorway, forcing a smile through tears that threaten to fall, while my own heart folds inward like a map worn from too many journeys, edges frayed with longing.

It isn't the first time — but oh, how it feels different now, like a wound reopened before it fully healed.

He isn't just anyone. He's the one who chose us, who wove himself into our little world with gentle hands and patient love, who created space for laughter, chaos, and quiet moments when the world felt safe again. Now duty calls him too — not forever, not even for long, but long enough to leave a hollow ache behind that echoes through our empty rooms.

I know this road, every painful step of it.

I know the waiting, the hoping, those precious moments of connection across miles and oceans that leave me both grateful and yearning for more.

I know how strong I can be, because I've been strong before - though sometimes strength feels like a heavy cloak I never asked to wear.

But this time, my children are old enough to see what strength costs, to feel the weight of absence in their bones.

They ask questions with their eyes before their mouths can form the words, their small faces mirrors of my own uncertainty.

Will he call us? Will he forget? Will he miss us the way we'll miss him - desperately, completely, with every breath?

I tell them the truth, my voice soft but unwavering:

It's okay to miss someone so much your chest aches, to feel the emptiness like a physical presence.

It's okay to be scared, to let your fear show like stars in the night sky.

It's okay to hope, cry, and laugh in the same breath - emotions tangled like Christmas lights in December.

Strength isn't about not feeling; it's about feeling everything, deeply and completely.

It's about loving through the fear, even when love feels like walking barefoot on broken glass.

It's about keeping our hearts soft, even when goodbyes make them ache with the weight of unsaid words.

We are learning this together — again. Learning how to breathe through the pain.

Not just how to stand strong.

But how to stand together, our shared love a bridge across the distance.