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Celebrating a Wife Who Has Had to Spend Mother’s Day Alone
Celebrating a Wife Who Has Had to Spend Mother’s Day Alone
By ZACHARY BELL
Zachary Bell Zachary Bell with his family following his second deployment.
Mother’s Day has almost arrived, and as I struggle to come up with gift ideas, my thoughts turn toward the many holidays and family events I missed due to training, field operations and deployments. My four years in the Marines Corps included two combat tours in Afghanistan that included trials and tribulations that I will remember for the rest of my days. But I have come to realize that, compared to my wife, I had the easier job.
I spent my entire enlistment training daily in the hopes that I would go to combat and be able to contribute in the war. But even with the countless days in the field, on the range and in war itself, I believe none of it was as hard as what my wife went through giving birth to our first child just two days before I deployed in 2008. Or being eight months pregnant with our second child while I was leaving for my second deployment to Afghanistan in 2009, when all we could hope for was that we would see each other again. Twice I walked away from my family believing the weight of the world was on my shoulders, but the reality was that my wife, Christy, was the one who had to keep things from falling apart.
I remember coming home after my first deployment in October 2008. I was ready to start being a dad, but I had no idea of where to start. And it showed consistently. During my time at war, I had matured, but so had my wife. Only more so. She was so far beyond the meager parenting skills I had acquired from multiple books. During my seven-month deployment, she had dealt with colic for two weeks, waiting three months for my first phone call, moving from Tennessee to North Carolina, and unpacking a storage unit and building a new home for our family. In between she was writing letters, taking pictures, and making and sending packages to me. Through it all, the consistent gaps in communication and the constant fear for my safety brought her many sleeplessness nights.
The first time I spent alone with my daughter was eight months after she was born, and I remember how unprepared I felt — and how worried Christy was. I finally persuaded her to leave the house for just an hour or two and take a break. It seems strange that I would even need to convince my wife that I was capable of baby-sitting our child but that was the reality of our lives. She briefed me on everything from how to use baby wipes to what rice cereal to feed our daughter. We thought none of this would even be necessary since Christy was leaving during afternoon nap time. It should have been smooth sailing.
But about 30 minutes into my two-hour first adventure in baby-sitting, our daughter, Alyssa, woke up. I was panicked and tried everything from bottles to new diapers, but nothing seemed to work. I debated whether to call Christy. I soon realized that my daughter just wanted to be held while I was standing. Soon she fell back to sleep, just before Mommy came home. As I recounted my victory to Christy, it dawned on me that this had been her life every day for the past seven months, and that she had had no training, nothing close to what I had endured to prepare me for my mission. I gained a new respect for her and all the other spouses, mothers, brothers, sisters and caregivers that are anchors to the world back home.
This situation would play out again when I returned from Marja, Afghanistan, in July 2010. Though I had missed the birth of our second daughter, I was better prepared for what a 7-month-old is capable of. Our most trying time was to come in the days ahead, after we moved back to Tennessee in December 2010.
The next year, while we were living with my mother-in-law, I began college and made the dean’s list my first semester. But I was still dealing with the harsh realities of life after the Marines Corps. The corps had given me countless opportunities and a strong sense of pride, helping me become a man. But as I interviewed for jobs in Tennessee, it seemed to me that some potential employers did not know what to think about my military experience. My applications were rejected, one after another.
I was demoralized. Christy could see the turmoil inside me as I retracted from people, bitter and resentful. Throughout my enlistment, she had not only maintained the family but had also been an anchor for me, consistently putting her needs after ours. And now she did it again. The last interview I had was for a position at a local children’s hospital and I was unsure of what I would do if it, too, fell through. As I came into the house, prepared to tell Christy that it felt like another lost opportunity, she embraced me and said something I have never forgotten. “We have been through much worse then this,” she told me. “I know you can do it.”
I got the job three weeks later. But to this day, I am still trying to impress my wife.
Zachary Edward Bell served with the First Battalion, Sixth Marines, from 2007 to 2011 as a rifleman, deploying twice to Helmand Province, Afghanistan. He lives in Tennessee with his wife and two children and works for a nonprofit veterans organization.
By ZACHARY BELL
Zachary Bell Zachary Bell with his family following his second deployment.Mother’s Day has almost arrived, and as I struggle to come up with gift ideas, my thoughts turn toward the many holidays and family events I missed due to training, field operations and deployments. My four years in the Marines Corps included two combat tours in Afghanistan that included trials and tribulations that I will remember for the rest of my days. But I have come to realize that, compared to my wife, I had the easier job.
I spent my entire enlistment training daily in the hopes that I would go to combat and be able to contribute in the war. But even with the countless days in the field, on the range and in war itself, I believe none of it was as hard as what my wife went through giving birth to our first child just two days before I deployed in 2008. Or being eight months pregnant with our second child while I was leaving for my second deployment to Afghanistan in 2009, when all we could hope for was that we would see each other again. Twice I walked away from my family believing the weight of the world was on my shoulders, but the reality was that my wife, Christy, was the one who had to keep things from falling apart.
I remember coming home after my first deployment in October 2008. I was ready to start being a dad, but I had no idea of where to start. And it showed consistently. During my time at war, I had matured, but so had my wife. Only more so. She was so far beyond the meager parenting skills I had acquired from multiple books. During my seven-month deployment, she had dealt with colic for two weeks, waiting three months for my first phone call, moving from Tennessee to North Carolina, and unpacking a storage unit and building a new home for our family. In between she was writing letters, taking pictures, and making and sending packages to me. Through it all, the consistent gaps in communication and the constant fear for my safety brought her many sleeplessness nights.
The first time I spent alone with my daughter was eight months after she was born, and I remember how unprepared I felt — and how worried Christy was. I finally persuaded her to leave the house for just an hour or two and take a break. It seems strange that I would even need to convince my wife that I was capable of baby-sitting our child but that was the reality of our lives. She briefed me on everything from how to use baby wipes to what rice cereal to feed our daughter. We thought none of this would even be necessary since Christy was leaving during afternoon nap time. It should have been smooth sailing.
But about 30 minutes into my two-hour first adventure in baby-sitting, our daughter, Alyssa, woke up. I was panicked and tried everything from bottles to new diapers, but nothing seemed to work. I debated whether to call Christy. I soon realized that my daughter just wanted to be held while I was standing. Soon she fell back to sleep, just before Mommy came home. As I recounted my victory to Christy, it dawned on me that this had been her life every day for the past seven months, and that she had had no training, nothing close to what I had endured to prepare me for my mission. I gained a new respect for her and all the other spouses, mothers, brothers, sisters and caregivers that are anchors to the world back home.
This situation would play out again when I returned from Marja, Afghanistan, in July 2010. Though I had missed the birth of our second daughter, I was better prepared for what a 7-month-old is capable of. Our most trying time was to come in the days ahead, after we moved back to Tennessee in December 2010.
The next year, while we were living with my mother-in-law, I began college and made the dean’s list my first semester. But I was still dealing with the harsh realities of life after the Marines Corps. The corps had given me countless opportunities and a strong sense of pride, helping me become a man. But as I interviewed for jobs in Tennessee, it seemed to me that some potential employers did not know what to think about my military experience. My applications were rejected, one after another.
I was demoralized. Christy could see the turmoil inside me as I retracted from people, bitter and resentful. Throughout my enlistment, she had not only maintained the family but had also been an anchor for me, consistently putting her needs after ours. And now she did it again. The last interview I had was for a position at a local children’s hospital and I was unsure of what I would do if it, too, fell through. As I came into the house, prepared to tell Christy that it felt like another lost opportunity, she embraced me and said something I have never forgotten. “We have been through much worse then this,” she told me. “I know you can do it.”
I got the job three weeks later. But to this day, I am still trying to impress my wife.
Zachary Edward Bell served with the First Battalion, Sixth Marines, from 2007 to 2011 as a rifleman, deploying twice to Helmand Province, Afghanistan. He lives in Tennessee with his wife and two children and works for a nonprofit veterans organization.