Welcome Home

Emma was crying. I'm not sure what happened, but my 1 year old great niece was not a happy camper. I sat at the dining room table with the rest of the girls in my family, eating Sunday dinner when we heard the familiar wimper.

There is always the sound of children's laughter or crying or whining in our house on Sunday. And normally, one of the mommy's gets up from their meal and gathers the crying child in their arms, wipes their tears and makes it all better.

For the past year the mom's have been on 24 duty without a break. The daddy's have been very busy overseas. Absent from our homes, but not our hearts and minds.

This Sunday was different than the past 52, though. None of the mommy's jumped up. They just continued their meals.

But, Emma stopped crying.

I looked over to see what had happened and there was Uncle Kory with baby Emma in his arms, wiping the tears.

At that moment it hit me, they are home. All the boys are really home for good. Not just on leave, but really, truly, home.

I've felt like I couldn't breathe for the past year. And if I felt that way as an Aunt, I can't even begin to imagine what the wives, kids, parent's and grandparent's have felt like.(God bless them. They are so strong.)

I kept it all in. My head knew they were gone. I told everyone about my family that was overseas. But I never really let my heart know. I knew, if given the chance to really sit down and think about them being away, to think about where they were, I would break.
I would lose it.
So, I pretended for 52 weeks that I was strong. I told myself that everything was just fine.

And now it is. They are back. They are safe. No more pretending. Our family is complete once again. No more counting down Sundays.

Later that afternoon, I just sat in the living room and smiled. So content. To my left sat Lance and Carly and Emma. On the couch were Kory and Teri next to Dusty and Kesha. Gloria was attending to son Mason, while Chad was coming inside from chatting with some of the guys. Every single boy was in his right place. He was home.

I don't get to see them every week like I used to now that I live in Texas, but just knowing they are back is enough for me. My heart can beat again. My lungs can fully take in the breath that was held for so long.
I can imagine them all gathered around the dinner table, laughing and telling stories.
Talking about bait shops and bands.
Discussing school and work.
Telling the kids to get out of the lily pond for the hundreth time.
Holding crying babies.

They are all there and accounted for.

We are thankful for where they have been and what they have done. They were truly missed.

But now we can finally say, welcome home sweet boys.

Welcome home.