With another football season approaching, I can’t but be reminded of how much my up bringing as a “coaches’ kid” has prepared me for sharing a life with Wyatt in the military. Just about the time that Wyatt left for his “Business Trip” my father reported to training camp. Both …if all goes well...GO BRONCOS…will finish in January.
This was normal in my household. My dad was pretty much gone for five months out of the year. He would get home late. Way after we had been put to bed and would leave before we got up for school in the morning. My Mom had to run the household on her own. She showed me how to be independent. She can fix things probably better than my Dad now! Here are some of the things I have to remember...
1. Home is not a house. Home is being with the people you love. Home for my family has been in many cities and I know I am not done moving around.
2. Holidays don’t have to be celebrated on the actual day. Okay I know this kind of defeats the point of a holiday but if we got upset about every time we had to open Christmas presents on Christmas Eve because Dad had a game on Christmas Day. Or watching my poor mother pull in and out of the oven the turkey because the game just went into overtime and Dad won’t be home for an extra hour; life would be hard. Or what about how one of the two years our team made it to the Super Bowl my birthday lands right smack on game day. I know you are thinking “Wow what an awesome birthday.” Well rethink that… and pretend that you are a 13 year old girl who could care less about football :)
But the truth is…we celebrate with everyone when we can. Birthdays, Christmas, or Thanksgiving we just wait until we can all be together…even if it is three or four days late.
Well in the case of Wyatt's birthday, five months late. This is something that was getting me down. I wanted to make it really special like he had with my birthday. But with the mail being less that dependable I am going to have to wait for him to get his birthday celebration! But it is A-Okay because when we do celebrate it…we will be together and that is way better than anything I can send to him!
3. You will make time for the ones that you love. One of my favorite childhood memories was getting up before school and going to breakfast with my dad. BayFamily Breakfast....Green Bay's finest! We both loved this time that we got to spend together that it didn't matter that we had to leave at 5:00am to make sure that we would get to work and school on time. Wyatt and I don't get much talk time now a days but when we do, it is special.
4. Don't read the news paper! When you are a coach, one day you could be the hero and the next day the dumb bum that should have never been hired. It is just part of the job and it is printed and read by everyone. I stopped reading the paper after we left Green Bay. Not many kids have to read about their parent's job performance in the newspaper. This was something that I forgot for the first few weeks of deployment. I would watch the news on my lunch break...NOT A GOOD IDEA. It really will just upset you. But hey I shouldn't be so hard...sometimes the media will surprise you with THIS.
5. Support Support Support! My mom couldn't have been a better role model if she tried. By far one of the most supportive women I know and has been there with my father in thick and thin. You better think twice about saying something rude about my dad because she is as loyal as they come. And don't worry...she will tell you that what you said was wrong. :)
Today marks 10 months... I got a sweet phone call from the man I love. I couldn't ask for more. I think I am even going to treat myself to dessert tonight!
