Becoming One Purple Heart (Formerly Purple Hearts)

I Hope you Come Back Home

I have lived in Oceanside my entire life and I had never stepped foot on either the Marine or Navy bases in the San Diego area. Growing up my mother had a few boyfriends who were in the military but none of them stuck around long and we never went on base. Until we drove onto base that morning I did not realize how large it was and I was not expecting it to look like its own city. When we arrived that morning it was fairly quiet and we headed to pick up my ID card which took about 10 minutes. We then headed to the place on base where they store their weapons and that is when it got very real. I stayed in the car while he went to pick up his weapon. As I sat in the car I watched many other men head into the same building to pick up their weapons and it dawned on me that all of these men were going to be heading to Iraq too. Suddenly, I realized maybe my feelings toward the military were misplaced because sitting on this side of things it's hard to be critical or judgmental of these people who are about to go put their life on the line for our freedom as Americans. When Luke returned to the car he was carrying his military issued assault riffle which made everything feel more real and scary. We then headed to the parking lot near where the busses were loading and we parked the car and we unloaded his things. He had a trunk, two duffel bags, his backpack, and his weapon. Once we had everything unloaded we headed across the street to the busses. He carried his backpack, weapon, and two duffel bags while I carried his trunk/footlocker. When we arrived at the busses there were signs that said A, B, and C. He put one duffel bag at the A pile, one at the B pile and he asked me to put his trunk/footlocker by the letter C sign. Moments later Frankie and Riley walked up behind us and I watched them put his stuff into the various piles. Once everything was in the correct pile we headed over to the 4th bus which would be the bus Frankie and Luke would be getting into as their unit was on this bus. When we got to the bus it was a few minutes before 06:00 AM and it was time to say our final good-byes. Until that morning that we had arrived in front of that bus my feelings towards Luke were still confusing and I felt conflicted, even though the night before had helped clarify my feelings. When we arrived at the bus I suddenly felt a jarring wave of clarity hit me, I was falling in love with Luke whether I wanted to or not it was happening and it was happening really fast. Before he got on the bus we gave each other a hug and then we shared a soft kiss as we obviously needed to act like a married couple who was saying our good-byes. As we were going through the motions, I quickly realized that I was not just going through the motions as an act for those around us, but I was actually being my authentic self who was scared to death that the guy who I was falling in love with and who happened to be my real/fake husband was about to deploy into the most dangerous combat zone in the world. Just as he was about to get on the bus I said to him "Luke." He turned around and walked back over to me and I whispered in his ear "stay safe Luke, I... I... I... think this might be real." He then looked at me and gave me another hug and kiss but this time it felt like we weren't acting because I felt the passion between the two of us. He then took my hand and squeezed it and then he walked away to loaded onto the bus. When he got to his seat on the bus he looked out the window at me and I stared at him trying to memorize the curvatures of his face. As the buses started leaving he gave me a wave and a small smile. I then headed back to my car and as soon as I had closed the door a few tears fell from my eyes which honestly shocked me because I am not really an emotional person but I am certainly not a crier, in fact I couldn't remember the last time I had cried prior to that moment. That was the moment that I realized even though I had tried to fight it I actually had true deep feelings for Luke. As I am thinking about and remembering our wedding day I can't help but smile as I remember it like it was yesterday. 

Over the last Five months since he has been deployed we have Zoomed weekly when he has had access to a computer and we have exchanged emails a few times a week and the occasional call when he has reception which is rare. Through our communication exchange we have gotten to know one another much better and on a much deeper level and I think those deep feelings that I started having for him is actually love, in fact I am pretty certain that I actually love him. We have a call scheduled this morning in about 15 minutes which is why I am awake at this hour as I am not a morning person at all and I hate waking up before 10:00 AM mainly because I usually get off of work from the bar around 01:00-01:30 AM but I usually don't get to sleep until about 02:00 AM or even later sometimes. At first when we made our agreement to marry for benefits I was dreading the Zoom calls and emails but knew we had to do them to keep up our act, but now I look forward to them and I can't wait to see him on the other side of my screen.