Warrior's Wife Adventure

So, how does one celebrate an Alive Date? Especially when the warrior refuses?

In our situation, my husband Todd was wounded on 10/16/2009 in Afghanistan. He almost did not make it to Landshtul, let alone back to US soil. It was our fifteen year wedding anniversary when I received the phone call from Red Cross that he had been injured. It was10/15/2009 in Texas when I received the call while I was at work. I could not believe it.

During the blast that almost killed him, he lost two of his good friends. It has been four years, but once the end of September hits, the intensity and frequency of his nightmares increase, his mood gets more tense, and he takes on a more rigid mentality with our son and I. There are memorial fund raisers every year in October that honor one of his friends in Texas. However, Todd will never forget his friends as they died the day he lost his life as the way it used to be. He will never work as a Chemist again, a daily reminder as he fights to retain cognitive function due to the moderate Traumatic Brain Injury that renders him with frequent debilitating headaches that leave him panting and remove his voluntary muscle function. Out of the many changes that have been made to his body and mind, the mental changes are the ones that almost are worse. He wants more than anything to be able to do what he spent years of his life pursuing. The physical pain that rocks his limb salvage in his right femur and hip as well as the injury to his back keep him from being comfortable. His blood chemistry is always wrong. He never has enough white blood cells and out of what he has, there are too many of one type and not enough of another.  Sleep is never enough or without nightmares.

He is never without physical pain. Despite of these changes, there are many reasons to celebrate him being alive.

Even though he does not celebrate the fact he was spared, when he had so many catastrophic injuries at once and lost more blood at once than people typically ever survive from, he is still holding my hand. He has some long term memories. Some of them have disappeared, but he sometimes surprises me and will bring something up from earlier parts of our life together. 

Analytically, he can handle the complex math like Calculus and Physics – stuff I was never able to take in high school or college. I am so thankful for him because I could never help our teenaged son with homework in those subjects. It has been Todd. Even if it takes him longer than he harshly judges himself to recall a formula or a theory, he can still do it. He can still put music on my iPod and surprise me with a romantic song. He can hold me in his arms and make me feel safe. He loves me more than anything and can express it verbally. I have friends who have husbands who are unable to vocally communicate or hold them. Once he really surprised me by slow dancing with me at his sister’s wedding. I never expected him to put himself out there like that. I knew what a physical and emotional sacrifice it was for him to do that in front of all of those strangers and family.

 I feel like I have won the lottery. I thank God every day for sparing his life as our son and I benefit from him being in it daily. Our son and I celebrate it together. We call it the,”Yay, Todd was brought back to us day.” We hug him and tell him how grateful we are to have him in our lives. We tell him how we are thinking of his friends that have died and their families.

Remembering that day is bittersweet for him. Battling survivor’s guilt continually keeps him in a constant state of regret of what he could have done differently to save his friends. There was nothing that could have been done. Honoring him and reminding him of the good things he contributes to in our lives is something we do to help reinforce the goodness of him being alive.  We have been discussing renewing our wedding vows and perhaps celebrating them on an entirely different month and date. The anniversary just hasn’t been properly focused on like it should for the past four years. To me, it needs to be treasured, celebrated, and is something to be proud of. This year makes the NINETEENTH one! How many civilian couples make it to nineteen years without any of the added stressors of deployments or catastrophic injury? You better believe I am proud and so is he. This year is going to be one of the best ones ever.