Ben's first captain's wife tried to warn the young JOs' spouses that the best and worst parts of military life are the dear friends we make and the cold, hard fact that those friends almost always move somewhere else. What she didn't know at the time is that our family would fall into a "special" category: The Family that Always Serves as the Bon Voyage Crew (alias: EFMP, Exceptional Family Member Program - Category V for Homestead in Fleet Concentration Area).
Yes, the wise Patty Sandi called her friends "treasures for her basket" that she would always have even after moves, distance, and time had elapsed.
Some of my civilian blog-readers may shrug and say, "Yeah-yeah, that's 21st century life. People are mobile. We all have friends that move to our communities and ones that move away." I can only say that it's not the same. Only fellow married-to-this-insanity spouses understand the acronyms without needing a reference manual. We understand the nuance of signing up for this life but not necessarily liking it. We have celebrated every major, minor, and made-up holiday with an ever-shifting collection of families. Children's birthdays (excepting during "Baby Watches") almost never feature an actual grandparent or other blood relative in the photo.
These women have grabbed my kids on a moment's notice, divided their own family's meal when stricken with the realization that the Allbritton crablets are about to eat their fifth straight nitrite-laced "dinner", thrown in extra items at the grocery when the Crab Queen was incapacitated, etc., etc., often all the while marching ahead without their "head-of-household's" presence/help.
We serve on committees, boards, and civilian organizations together. We carpool. We endure endless vacations and weekends when our civilian counterparts go out into the planet in couples. We are each other's dates for balls, dinners, and movies.
Our children have become so intermingled that we can no longer figure out what house their sweatshirts, socks and shoes may have been left. (This is problematic when Jack's Troop 506 $35 sweatshirt or Dan's shoes-that-look-exactly-like-Joe's-and-Jamie's-because-we-all-shop-at-Target go on the lam). Our children have become so intertwined that we not only dole out treats and discipline without impunity, but our children are privy to the same colorful language we administer to our own kin. We better pick well!
We have the same health care plan, pay scale, and -- often -- landlord. We live yards from one another and are often the closest thing to Family and Sanity within driving distance. From the outside, it can resemble 1950s-style Utopia or Y2K In-Each-Other's-Bizness. From the inside, trust me, it's both simultaneously.
As Ben and I reached 15-plus years of this lifestyle, I deliberately recalled just a few of the many significant people who have graced us for as long as the Navy allowed. Some from Ben's commands and others from housing. Each helped us through some crisis -- real or imagined, significant or silly. Those we met in Rhode Island and our early days in San Diego, when we didn't know ANYTHING about the USN, like Debbie and Lisa. Dear Miss Barb, Mr. John and the boys. Dr. Sandi (aka, Jack's on-the-spot labor "coach") and her wonderful family. The Pauls have come and gone in various configurations three or four times now. Patty Grace to Washington State (but back again...thankfully!) Miss Judy to Hawaii. Patty Day-Na to Texas. (Not to mention Patty SW's sudden move to MN and Darrin's threatened house-buying). Now that I start, I realize there are just too many to begin to litanize. Last night, I learned (for almost certain) that Patty Kiki & Family's departure to DC is imminent.
It will take me every one of the next 17-days to wrap my placenta-depleted brain cells around this transition. My sorority's motto was "She has woven herself into so many lives that she will never die." Patty Kiki, even though she was a Tri-Delt, exemplifies this ideal, sans the morose part: She has woven herself into so many lives that she will never really get rid of us this easily.
I glancingly happened on the story featuring Winnie the Pooh (faced with the reality of being the Beverly Hillbillies characters waving "bye-bye" from our porch, as we have become so adept at doing over the years). Perhaps you remember the tale where Pooh and Piglet and Tigger are lost in the Hundred-Acre Wood, walking in circles as they search for the path home, and they keep stumbling upon the very same sand pit. Pooh wonders, "Perhaps if we start looking for this sand pit we might find home?"
My job for now: Be the sand pit and wait to welcome folks returning "home".
Now we just need Patty Kiki's husband to hurry up and receive orders back to San Diego that "come with a house".
One more thing:
Wah!
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