My lovely wife of sixteen years graduated first in her class at one of the world’s best schools of nursing, Johns Hopkins University.
She did this while being a wife to me, a mother to our three children, and a friend to the many people of our extensive social circle. She led the way for a class made up of mostly twenty-somethings, almost none of which had any other responsibility than to get through school. She was recognized in front of the entire school for her achievement, and I have never been prouder.
She is going to make a TERRIFIC Air Force officer, and an even better nurse. She’s already the best wife a man could have, and our children are growing up healthy, happy, smart and good lookin’, mostly due to her efforts. She’s an irresistable force AND an immovable object at once.
Also, I should mention that while she was roaring along at full throttle through her academic career, I was on temporary duty to Saudi Arabia, Tampa, Florida, Panama City, Florida, MacGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey, and I had several months of 12-hours-a-day shift work while I fought two wars. This left her alone, a single parent to THREE school-age kids, and trying to somehow stretch a slim buck to the next payday. She not only did all that, she maintained a loving household for our kids to thrive in, and for me to come back to whether I was gone for months, weeks or hours.
Wow.
After four long, hellish years, we have to figger out how to live an entirely new life. No longer are we single-mindedly pursuing that dam’ sheepskin, and not every waking hour has to be filled with care and worry about how to buy $165 textbooks AND new kids’ shoes for school. I am a bit stunned, and I’m sitting here at three in the morning wondering at it all. Seems dream-like.
Or maybe it’s just fatigue. This week of graduation has been the longest month of my life! Exhausting and exhilirating…immense pride; keyed-up waiting to her commissioning ceremony*; anticipation of a new assignment (MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida - Central Command HQ); the thrill of being home-owners for the first time in our lives; and just a sense of relief…and accomplishment.
How did a joker like ME ever rate HER? She’s my intellectual equal, and I think she’s mentally tougher than me - I couldn’t do what she just did, and I KNOW that. She loves me as fiercely as I love her, although I can’t imagine why. Her honor and integrity are as precious to her as mine is to me, and there is no greater patriot, ready to give all for her country.
As Hopkins’ #1 graduate, she could command six figures in a hospital of her choice in a couple of years. Instead, she is subordinating herself to a rigid and tough career (no, actually, it is more than a mere career - it is a profession unlike any other - the Profession of Arms AND of Humane Service to Others), where she will no doubt be buffetted and tossed by forces beyond her control, that may take her to the worst places in the world, and that have the potential to actually kill her. She does this out of a sense of obligation to our country, and a desire to serve something bigger than herself.
Her life with me thus far has been one of privation and sacrifice, and she has NEVER ONCE complained, or asked for more than was possible for me to give her. She is frugal and mature with what little we’ve had, and she has made an art of the ‘economy of the household’. It has hurt to see her ‘get by’ with so little, and to be so stoic about it, never showing the least concern for not being able to dress, live or ride in a style above our meager means.
Now that we have the potential to FINALLY make a try for the Brass Ring, she would rather give back than take.
Folks, I don’t care if all that seemed sappy and I don’t care who knows that I love that woman more than my own life. I can’t think of a more profound blessing to bestow on anybody than this:
May all of you be as happy as me.
*Lexington Green, Massachusetts (chosen for obvious historical signifigance; apologies to our British Brothers ), July 26th, 11AM. Reception at the Hanscom Air Force Base Officer’s Club immediately after. This is an ‘all-hands’ invitation to any Doper that would like to attend.
“You are now leaving the American Sector” - Sign at Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin
