Missing Him...

I miss Bob a lot lately. Certainly I missed him when he first left for Chicago, but this kind of missing him is different. I ache for him. When he first left for this temporary assignment I knew that it would be hard for the 5 of us to adjust to his absence...and I was right. Slowly, but surely, though we did regain our footing as a family of 5 while he was regaining his own footing as a family of 1.

He is working hard, that husband of mine, trying to learn as much as he can during his 7 months away from us. I know that he is away, so that he can try and provide an even better life for us than the one that we already have. I know that he is doing this for us, and that at the end of this journey we will be all the more grateful we took it on. In the meantime though, my heard and body will ache for him.

The kids feel his absence as well. Sarah had to create a drawing at school of her family, and without even thinking, she put the 5 of us on her drawing along with a story about who lived in our home. There was no mention of Bob anywhere. Tears pooled in my eyes as I was going through her school work the day I stumbled across this paper, and I felt that we had made the wrong decision. Did our desire for financial success cloud our judgement so much that we put our most important asset, our family, in jeopardy? Are we greedy for wanting to be able to provide more for our children? Should I just go back to work myself, so that we will never have to be apart again? My mind raced a thousand miles an hour trying to field these questions, and the finish line was no where to be seen.

Yes, he comes home every weekend, but it is not the same. We pick him up around 4 pm on Friday, and deposit him back at the airport between 6-7 pm on Sunday nights. The weekends fly by, and just as we get in sync as a family again he is gone. We have been on this road for almost 4 months, and have a little over 3 months to go, but I don't feel like I am over the hump. I feel like the worst of the ache is yet to come.

I feel like a lost ship in the night. I cannot see my beacon pointing me towards the shore. Lately, I have felt like my ship is taking on water, and I can no longer pump it out fast enough to stay afloat. I have many people around me who I can call for help, but it is not the same because they are not him.

He is our calm among the storm. He is our steadfast hand pointing the way in the right direction. He is our life. He is missed terribly by all.