My beautiful boy, my Christian, my baby is home SAFE!!!!  Thank you all for your love, support, your encouraging notes, your tears mixed with mine over these last seven months.  Sending your boy to a war zone is just hard.

About three weeks ago we lost contact with Chris.  During his entire deployment to Afghanistan I had been blessed with almost daily notes via Facebook.  Thank God for Facebook!

Every day I didn’t get a note I pestered Dave, his brothers; “Did you hear from Christian today?”.  Those days were hard.  Those were nights I didn’t sleep.  Some of those I had little panic attacks.  All of those days I cried.  I cannot describe the incredible fear and helplessness that comes with sending your child to war.

These last three weeks have been terrible.  I knew it was time to come home.  I knew that during the last weeks he would have limited “uptime”.  That is to keep him safe.  I also knew that if something would happen the Chaplain and men in uniform would show up at my door.  I hated my doorbell these last three weeks.

But not knowing for sure, just waiting, hoping, praying, it’s hard.  It is lonely.  It is scary.  And now it is OVER! My beautiful boy is home (My Beautiful Boy, My Kids, more).  He is home safe.  He still has a lot of post-deployment work to do, and the future is unclear, but I have fingers & toes crossed that I can hold him in my arms soon.  I’ll hold him so tight and so long and so close it will make up for the last seven months.

Christian’s deployment was not easy (he hates sand), and without a lot of the comforts of a regular deployment.  They’re job was to dismantle and breakdown and turn over Camp Leatherneck to the Afghan military. He made the best of his time there. He felt he was doing the right thing, a good thing, and he had the opportunity to make some new friends from a totally different background.

Pssst… that’s Christian on the right.  Teaching a local national to throw the “W” or Westberry gang sign.  We’re dorks. I admit it.

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