The Ongoing Picture Challenge

Missing the Marine

Little Cora Shea Conalee was one year old when her Daddy left; when my husband left. He didn’t leave because of too much stress, or because he wasn’t ready to be a Dad. In fact, he was overjoyed to be a father. He had been looking forward to it since I think the second we got married. He always wanted a girl, I think just so he could spoil her; probably hoping her to be a little Daddy’s girl. Her arrival couldn’t have been any more excitable for anyone. Grandparents-to-be were eagerly waiting, and Tim, my husband, was already picking out names from the Baby Book and deciding which dress she would wear first and what hue of pink should her room be. Or should her room be blue, what if she wants to be a tom boy? Or maybe green, should we get wallpaper of trees so she’ll want to be outdoorsy?

Cora was blessed into this world on an early Thursday December morning, bringing more light into all of our lives.  And it was a brisk October Monday morning, when Tim was informed he had to go to Iraq to serve our country. Cora wasn’t quite a year yet, and she wouldn’t understand. Tim was less than yearning to go, but he had always wanted to go about serving our country and he had made a commitment he couldn’t break years earlier. He would leave, and Cora and I were to go about our daily lives as though he weren’t gone.

Easier said than done, I can tell you, as every single mother knows. Not even because Cora was difficult to deal with, she was an angel compared to other babies I had seen, but because Tim was already a major impact on my life as well as our daughter’s. She knew when Daddy would come home, she knew where he would be, and she knew his face as he would play with her, hold her, and rock her. She knew, and she would recognize when he was gone.

I would recognize when he was gone, too, more so than I thought would bother me. Little did I know I would see his absence in everything in life. I would see it in the chill of the other side of the bed. I would see it in the newspaper still at the end of the driveway. I would see it in setting a place for two at the dinner table. I would see it in waking up to take care of her cries in the night, no one there to argue whose turn it was to get up and handle it. I would see it in the coffee that was no longer made before I awoke. I would smell it in his cologne he left behind. I would smell it in his robe that hung on our towel rack. I would hear it when our song popped on the radio. I would hear it whenever someone said his precious name. I would see it in Cora, too. Her bright little sky blue eyes that matcher her fathers. In her little giggle that would cause Tim to fall into hysterical laughter. I would feel it with her, as some nights when Cora would begin crying I simply cried with her. I would hold her tight making hush noises, all the while rocking myself as tears streamed down my cheeks. I hadn’t heard from him in so long. If his absence wasn’t enough, worrying about him hurt even more.

What if he didn’t come back? What if he did, but something happened to his memory? What if he forgot about us? What if he’s hurt?

The worrying ended in the New Year at the ending of an especially chilly winter. Two men dressed in sophisticated suits with badges and medals pinned to them walked to my doorway out of a long black car. One was carrying something in his hands. I watched them walk up our long weaving walk way through my office window. Cora had a bottle to her mouth as she rested in my arms curled in a blanket. I rocked her back and forth, enjoying her warmth and loving her as my perfect baby daughter. Loving her as the best thing of both Tim and I. Loving her more than I thought love was possible, giving more love than I thought I had to give. She was still the light of my life, and while I missed Tim, little Cora was keeping me grounded.

Three prompt knocks sounded against our mahogany door, and I walked slowly to the front, my slippers sliding across the hard wood floors. I clutched Cora a little tighter, already jumping to conclusions as my heart beat up inside my chest faster and faster until I thought it would surely explode.