flannel sheets and a body pillow

This past week was mostly devoted to getting ready for Jerry to leave. He had the whole week off, but we had to spend much of it taking care of the last-minute things before the deployment. But after all of that scurrying, we were able to slow down, catch our breath, and enjoy a leisurely Thanksgiving. Our friends from Schweinfurt joined us as well as another soldier who deployed this weekend and we all enjoyed lots and lots of good Thanksgiving cookin'! I even managed to make a passable version of Jerry's mom's cornbread dressing, a special treat for Jerry Giant! The meal was so good that we enjoyed leftovers twice more this weekend and Jerry left with lots of good food in his belly!


We seem to have broken the tradition of getting into silly arguments right before a time of separation, which is a pretty great thing! Our relationship has been better and stronger than ever in many ways. But it made the saying goodbye part extremely hard. This whole week has been very teary for me, though I usually managed to save my tears for times when Jerry couldn't see them. He hates to see me sad, especially when there's nothing he can do to make it better. So I tried to spare him that as much as possible. He needs to be taking care of himself and not worrying about me so that he can come home to me safely!


As the days wound down to his departure, we took care of some final preparations. For Jerry, that included tormenting the dog one last time. And by tormenting, I of course mean playing with him like a guy. Jerry thought it would be fun to give Scooter a ride in the hamper:

I'm not sure Scooter thought that it was that fun!

But as soon as Scooter was released from his hamper prison (ahem...I mean ride), he bounded up to Jerry for some lovin'. So it couldn't have been that bad!

Jerry also had to put his vest thing together and try it on. Here he is modeling it for me:

Of course it would normally be worn over his uniform, so the cod piece wouldn't stand out quite so much!!


My preparations included getting bed supplies. I got some toasty flannel sheets to help keep me warm when I'm sleeping alone for a year and a body pillow to snuggle up to. Of course, these things can't really replace Jerry, but they can make it a little bit easier to tolerate sleeping alone in a big ol' empty bed.

After all of the preparing, it was finally time to pile all of Jerry's bags into the car and head over to post for Jerry to draw his weapon. Overall, yesterday was a terrible, terrible day. I would probably list it in the top three worst days of my life. But it was pretty cool to see him with his weapon. I even got to hold it and ask questions about how it worked! Here he is just a few hours before leaving:

As I said, it was a pretty awful day. I was so sad that the hurt was actually physical. My stomach was about eight kinds of sick and it felt like I had a heavy stone in the middle of my chest. I must've cried at least ten times. I keep reminding myself that it wouldn't hurt so badly if I didn't love him so much. So that's a good thing, right? And it wasn't just hard for me. Jerry's not too big on showing his emotions, but even he was a little choked up toward the end.

After picking up his weapon, we had to wait around for three hours before Jerry was able to load his stuff onto a bus. After loading the bus, the soldiers were given another couple of hours to spend with their families in the gym. Here we are in the gym, our last photo together for quite a while:

Obviously, neither of us were at our happiest when this photo was taken. And it wasn't only because Jerry had to wear the silly eye protection! We decided that our quality time was spent at home earlier and that waiting around for the bus to leave was just making things worse for both of us. So we said our goodbyes before the family time was over and I went home and Jerry got on the bus. And as awful as I had felt throughout the day, it was nothing compared to how I felt hugging him for the last time or how I felt when I was watching him walk away toward the bus. People keep telling me that I'm a strong woman to deal with all of this. But I can tell you that I have not been feeling very strong at all. I feel like a weeping pile of Hev.

Since Jerry got on that bus at 1:00 in the morning, he has taken the bus to an Air Force base, a plane to Kuwait and is now on another bus to a post in Kuwait. While I was writing this entry, he texted me to let me know that he had landed safely in Kuwait. My day has been much less eventful. I ran a few errands, did a few loads of laundry, cleaned my kitchen and talked to my awesome friend Jason (as opposed to my crappy friend Jason!). Today, I've felt a little like I'm just going through the motions, but I know it will get better. I know that I'm going to be okay, but I also know that life will be a little less sparkly without Jerry here. I can only hope that he makes it through the year safely and that we both come out stronger in the end. I guess that times like this make me even more sentimental and sappy than usual, but more than ever I feel like no matter how far away from each other we are physically we are always with each other. And that's something to hold on to.