It has been 9 years.

9 years from the time I woke from a sound sleep on a beautiful Sunday morning to the harsh ringing of the telephone on my bedside table. 9 years since I answered the phone expecting to hear my husband’s voice and instead heard a strange voice say, “Is this Mrs. Guinn?”

“Yes.” I answered.

 “Mrs. Bobbie Guinn?”

“Yes.” I answered again as my heart started pounding in fear.

“Is your husband Sgt. Thomas Guinn?”

“Yes.” Why are you asking me these questions I was thinking to myself, I’ve told you who I am, just tell me what is going on!

With those three short questions I knew our lives had changed forever. I listened as a Colonel, whose name I did not recognize and do not remember, explained to me that my husband had been injured while deployed to Pakistan. He quickly assured me that Tommy was fine and they would get a satellite phone down to him soon so he could call me. There was no possible way I was going back to sleep until I had spoken to Tommy myself, so I got out of bed to start getting ready to go to church. We were having a bake sale that day and I had a lot to do! I really believed at that time he must have broken an arm or a leg, after all I had talked to him the afternoon before and he was fine. The Colonel said they were taking a satellite phone to him so he could call me, if they were doing that, how badly could he be injured? I did not know at the time, with each phone call I received that day, the news would get worse and worse-I would not hear my husband’s voice for another month.

Today, March 6^th, 2015 is the celebration of my Wounded Warrior’s “Alive Day”. It is the anniversary of the phone call that turned our neatly planned out life upside down and changed it forever. Someone asked me the other day if it feels like it has been 9 years and it was extremely hard to answer the question; in fact, I still do not have a good answer to that question. Sometimes the memories of that day and the days immediately following are so vivid that I feel like I am still living through the experience. To this day I answer the telephone with an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach waiting expectantly for the bad news about to be delivered.  Other times, I do not even remember our lives pre-injury because this is just who we are and this is our normal.[bctt tweet="There will always be memories, good and bad but one day they will be able to say, “It’s been 9 years”."]

As I planned to publish my first blog I thought today would be a great day because it is such a significant day for us every year, the day we get to celebrate that Tommy is still with us; but as I have prepared to release this today I have struggled with a sense of impending doom, tears just under the surface waiting to be shed, a sinking sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and the desire to scream out “No, this did not really happen to us!!!!”. Every single emotion I felt March 6^th, 2006 is still fighting for control March 6, 2015 but I have found the joy and laughter in the life I have been given. Tommy and I have risen above a situation that seemed so hopeless to be better and stronger than we were before. Do I regret drudging this up and sharing it with you today? Not even a little bit! Someone, somewhere is at the beginning of their journey and maybe, through the wonders of cyberspace they will come across this blog and know they will make it. There will always be memories, good and bad but one day they will be able to say, “It’s been 9 years”.