I left the kitchen in a daze. My textbook answered all of my basic questions but I wanted to know more. I did not personally know anyone who was in a wheelchair. How will he get dressed? How will he shower?  Will he be able to drive a car? There were so many unanswered questions.  

I knew I needed to tell Dakota and Dustie about the spinal cord injury, but the thought of doing so literally made me sick to my stomach. I called Phyllis, my mother-in-law, and asked her to come to Fort Hood. I thought it would help to have her there with me when I told them. Now that my children are grown and my own son has become a man, I realize how strong she was throughout all of this. Tommy is my husband, but he is her CHILD. She is the one who gave birth to him, who stayed awake nights with him when he was sick and the one who worried and prayed over him. (I have heard stories about Tommy as he was growing up, trust me, she spent many hours worrying and praying.) How do you continue to stay strong when you are told your child has a brain injury they may not wake up from? How do you continue to be a calm, gentle person when you know if your son does wake up he will be paralyzed and need a wheelchair the rest of his life? I have only recently realized the amount of strength and compassion Phyllis shared with me during this time even though she was struggling with her own grief. I cannot thank her and my father-in-law enough for all they did for us when Tommy was injured.

Due to the fact we were a military family, my children and I have always had a very special bond. There were numerous times Tommy was away and it was just the three of us. We would sing and laugh and be silly to take our minds off of how empty our home felt. We made a game of moving marbles from one jar to another each evening to count down days until his return. Many nights after I tucked them into bed I would listen to my children cry themselves to sleep because they missed their daddy. I wanted so much to be able to take that hurt away from them, but all I could do was comfort them and teach them to be proud of the sacrifices we made because their daddy was one of the special few who chose to serve our country. I would hide my own tears in an effort to be strong for them. At the time, I felt the sound of those cries were the worst sound I could ever hear- until the night I told them Tommy would not walk again. The memory of my son sitting on the chair in the living room with tears streaming down his face still haunts me; he was just 12 years old. He was beginning a time in his life when he needed his father to teach him how to be a man. Dustie lay in her bed that night inconsolable because she felt it was her fault Tommy was hurt. She explained she had forgotten to pray for her daddy Saturday night and that was why he was injured. It is very difficult to explain to a crying 10 year old that she did not cause her daddy to be hurt. As a mom I just wanted to take away the pain they were feeling, but all I could do was put my arms around them and try my best to comfort them. I felt so helpless and inadequate. This situation was not like a skinned knee-I could not kiss it and make it all better. I am able to withstand many things, but the grief of my children is not one of them.

The next day we finally received some encouraging news, Tommy was stable enough to be flown home. He would be transported to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. He was coming home! After further discussion, the doctors decided it would be better for him to be sent to Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) in San Antonio, Texas because it was closer to where we were stationed. Most soldiers sent to BAMC are treated for severe burns or loss of limb, but they had a neurosurgeon on staff who would be able operate on Tommy’s back. I was so excited that I would finally be able to see my husband-it was so hard not to be by his side while he was in the hospital in Germany. We decided Phyllis and Dakota would go to East Texas and they, along with my father-in-law, would meet us in San Antonio. Angi and Chris were scheduled to go to Oklahoma on Friday and even though she did not want to leave me, I convinced Angi to go. I would be fine. Tommy was scheduled to arrive at BAMC on Friday-I only had to wait two more days to see my husband.

Finally it was Friday;  Dustie and I prepared to go to San Antonio. The Army had arranged for Mrs. Henson (the wife of the pilot who was escorting Tommy), Dustie and myself to be driven to BAMC in a government van. We anxiously waited for a departure time, and waited, and waited. Sometime after lunch I received a phone call notifiying me the trip had been cancelled. Two soldiers went into distress after take off and the plane had to turn around and return to Germany. I was devastated!  I found out later Tommy was one of the soldiers who went into distress. He had a liver laceration and started bleeding out after take off. When they arrived back in Germany, he was taken in for emergency abdominal surgery to repair the laceration.

At that point I really did not know what to do. We were so anticipating going to San Antonio and seeing Tommy that day. Dustie and I decided some retail therapy would be just what we needed. We drove to Killeen to pick up a few things from Walmart. Tommy’s birthday was in a couple of days and we wanted to get him a card.  We took our time and just enjoyed being out of the house. As we drove home I turned the volume on the radio up and we sang along as loud as we could- singing always calms the aching in my heart.  I pulled into the driveway and as I was unloading the groceries my phone rang. The words I heard on the other end are burned into my memory right next to the ones I received just five short days earlier. “Honey, I am so sorry to tell you this right now,” I heard my mother say, “but your dad just passed away.”

This has been the hardest post to write so far; I have procrastinated and procrastinated when it came to writing this post. Not because I worked in Midland last week, or because my hard drive crashed on my computer, but because the memory of this day still sends waves of sorrow, grief and anger through me.  What did I do to make God so angry with me? How much more can I take before my mind completely shuts down?  My dad was gone, and the one person I wanted to hold me and comfort me was in lying in a hospital, in a coma, in another country.