Turning the Page

I've been reading a lot of books lately.  Inundating myself with military knowledge.  I'm on my fourth in about a month and a half.  My absolute favorite was "Just Another Soldier" - I'll get into why in a different post, because this post has less to do with my favorite books, and more to do with a random epiphany of mine. 

I'm about three quarters of the way through a book called "The Blog of War: Front-Line Dispatches from Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan."  It isn't anything like I thought it would be.  Essentially, the author compiled hundreds of blogs into a book, divied them up into chapters based on common themes and called it good.  I've read through chapters on deploying and Army medics, and a variety of other things just fine...and then I got to the one on death.  I didn't want to read that chapter.  I tried my best to avoid it...and did a really good job...for about a week.  It was as if reading it somehow validated it.  I refuse to accept the fact that death is a part of war.  At least not now that I have a personal connection to war.  Thinking of it as a scary place, where death is imminent, doesn't mesh well with thoughts of my sweetheart being there.  Avoiding this chapter meant avoiding reality...and I was OK with that.

And then I noticed something.

My calendar is still stuck on May 12th - the day Jonny left for AT (Annual Training) at Camp Ripley.  It's one of those calendars where you tear a page off each day.  I've apparently neglected that task for more than a month.  It's almost as if pulling off that next page makes it more real.  Admitting that we're now in June (and not May) puts us closer to D-Day (Deployment Day).  It was my own little subconscious attempt to stop the hands of time.  I admire my psyche...and it's desire to build the bricks up around my heart and protect it from the inevitable.

Oh...and my personal refusal to wear anything to bed but the Army shirt he gave me before he left.  His smell still lingered on it for the longest time...and it was comforting.  Almost as if his arms were wrapped around me.

I've since washed it (a couple of times), and it doesn't smell a thing like him anymore. 

I've also pulled all the days off my calendar...but for some reason, left May 12th laying on the counter right in front the calendar.

And...for the first time...I started reading the chapter on death.


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On a side note...Welcome Canada.  It's nice to have you reading :)