Disguised Goodbyes, Part 2

This morning I took my daughter to breakfast. As a normal teen with a normal teen schedule, we don’t see each other as much anymore. She doesn’t hang out at home as much. Going to breakfast was her idea, relayed to me through Mom. Does it work that way at your house? After breakfast we went to the auto parts store, picked up a case of oil and order some parts for her truck. Made an appointment to get the truck serviced. Dad stuff.

It was nice. We talked about politics. This will be the first election in which my daughter can vote. We talked about Iraq. We talked about her social group. Mostly, I just enjoyed spending time with my kid and studiously not thinking about the fact that I will not see her for a year. She says the family will be alright this time. I think she’ll play a part in making sure everyone is alright this time. We talked about the past. She thinks she had a pretty good childhood. She knows her parents love her. She knows it’s pretty cool to have parents who love and care about her. We talked about the future.

On the one hand, I will miss my daughter and the family very much. However, their support and strength is part of why I have chosen to do what I do. We ran into a friend at the restaurant. He asked my daughter how she felt about the deployment. She said she was fine with it, it’s what we do. He made the observation that deployments are part of the military family culture. It’s what we do.

aloha

[posted with ecto]

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