One Year Ago...

Dear Tommy,

One year ago today we moved into this house and you left for Afghanistan. You weren't even supposed to be on that deployment. You were a replacement for an injured Marine. You should actually be deployed right now and we'd be getting ready for your return, instead we are mourning your death.

I remember my first night in this house. I cried SO hard and so long. You had been in a rush to make your flight and we didn't get a good "goodbye." I was SO sad and it was SO hard. I remember thinking that night that this didn't feel like "our" home or "your" home. It just didn't. I wondered if that meant you weren't coming home. I thought some horrible thoughts that I didn't want in my mind, but they came just the same. I wondered if you had bought this house for us-- the kids and I, so we'd have a place of our own. I hated thinking that way. I hated not feeling like this was OUR home. I hate thinking it even now. It was like one of my many premonitions about you... Writing that made me think of a few months ago when the movie "Premonition" with Sandra Bullock was on. It was sometime around Christmas because I picture the tree in my mind. Ok so maybe more than a few months ago, but really where did the time go? You took Nathan out and bought him a Lego X-Box game and something else. You went to Red Robin for dinner because he wanted some one-on-one Daddy time. I stayed here and cried watching it. I thought about it and put us in those rolls for some reason. It was weird, and I can't really explain it very well, but it obviously stood out in my mind. I wondered at the time if any of my premonitions about you would come true and how that must feel. To see her try to stop it from happening and in the end being the reason it happened. Now it hits a little close to home. I wish to God that none of this had happened and I never knew those feelings that I expected Sandra's character in the movie must have felt...

But back to last year on this day. I remember crying and begging God to let me hold you one more time. I wanted AT LEAST one more time because we didn't get a real goodbye when you left and we didn't get to spend any time together that day since we were moving. I told Him I NEEDED that and not to take you from me. I BEGGED Him not to take you. I was so scared because I have always thought it would be your second war deployment that would take your life. I wondered on that night where I would be on this day, one year later. I wonder the same thing right now about next year. I'm afraid to know what that day holds, though because life can always get worse. I wish I could have a "Flash Forward" like that ABC show and I wish I wouldn't see anything.

I know I'm so negative and bringing those around me down, too, but I can't help it. I can't help wanting this to be over. You can't come back to me, so the only way to be with you is to go to you. I'm obviously not going on my own, I just wish an act of God would bring me to you. I will always want that until the day we are together again.

Love you and miss you,
Katie