Breaking Point.

Most days I can make it through just fine.

Then after a week of those "most days" I begin to think everything is fine.

I begin to feel like this deployment is going by fast.

I begin to think I can handle it all.

I believe I'm strong enough.

Then just when I think everything is going well, something always happens.

Murphy shows up to prove to me that I can't do it all.

We have had down pours of rain every night for the last week and a half it seems like.

Our land is wet all the time anyway, add a little rain and ducks can happily make it a home.

We haven't been able to cut our grass because our yard is SO SOAKED.

Today it was sunny outside.

I decided to spend the evening outside getting the yard cut.

The lawnmower was out of gasoline.

I took the kids out with me, grabbed some dinner, filled up the tank with gasoline to put in the lawn mower, run home and we all get dressed to spend the evening outside getting the yard caught back up.

The girls were arguing over who would get to do the push mower, they both WANTED to.

We head outside to get started.

I put gas in the push mower, try to start it and it WILL NOT START.

I keep trying but it decides it just doesn't want to cut that high grass in the yard.

I give up.

Then Spencer comes around the corner of the house to tell me that the weed eater isn't working. He explains what it is doing (like I really know how to work a freaking weed eater anyway) and tells me it won't work.

I tell him to grab the tank of gasoline, put it in the riding mower and bring it around so that we can AT LEAST get the front yard cut.

He goes to the shed to get the lawn mower out and someone who was in the shed tried to start it and left it on and the battery is now dead.

I give up.

I sit down on the front porch steps, looking at the tall grass in our yard needing cut, listening to our American flag up above me whipping in the evening wind, the sound of other lawn mowers in the distance cutting their own yards (probably by husbands who are home to help), watching Molly chewing on a stick in the yard realizing how hidden she is by the tall grass, the yellow ribbon around the tree blowing in the wind.......and I miss him.

I miss having a man here who knows how to get these things to work.

I miss feeling like it isn't all up to me, that all of this isn't all on my shoulders.

I

Miss

Him.

Sometimes like this evening, I never feel more alone than I do now.

I had my break down. I cried and then cried some more.

Spencer came up to the porch and sat down on the step beside me.

He put his arm around me and told me it would be alright, we would figure it out.

Then we both just sat there on the front step of the porch looking out at the yard, watching Molly chew her stick she found and we talked about how much we missed Jerome. We talked about how we knew if he were here he would know how to fix all these things.

Then he offered to go to the neighbors, Jay and Stacey's, and ask to borrow their mower.

Spencer came back home riding the mower and Natalie and Katie went running through the yard screaming, "Jay saved the day!!".

That is something that they have become quite used to saying. Since Jerome has been gone, when I needed a sitter because Spencer was sick and needed to go the hospital, or the tire on the truck went flat, the computer broke, the battery in the van went dead (I could go on and on).....our neighbor Jay has been there for us to help. The kids now just laugh and say, "Jay saves the day again!".

Spencer cut the front yard as best he could.

The grass was so high it was just shooting out.

Natalie came up to me and told me to just sit down and relax, they were going to pull the weeds and get the rest of the landscaping along the sidewalk finished for me, "For Mother's Day" she said. She and Katie grabbed a hoe and shovel and started doing....well....I'm really not sure but it made me smile anyway to see them trying to help.

I took a few deep breaths in and out.

Then about that time Spencer drove by Molly, who was happily enjoying chewing on her stick, and the grass shot all over her. She looked at her stick, sat up covered in green grass and looked at Spencer as if she were saying to him, "What did I ever do to you?".

I started laughing.

Spencer was laughing as he was mowing.

I laughed so hard I couldn't stop laughing.

It was funny, really funny.......but I think a part of it was just me letting out the stress and enjoying a good laugh rather than a good cry.

The grass will be there tomorrow....and the next day for that matter.

I will get through this, I always do somehow.

But for now I'm just thankful.

Thankful for kids who can make me laugh when all I want to do is cry.

Thankful for neighbors who are ALWAYS there when we need them.

Thankful that even though my husband isn't here with me, I know he is in a safer place than he was his last deployment.

Thankful for a nice hot bath that I am going to soak in this evening while I read a good book, as soon as I get these kids in bed.

And while our yard may not get "best yard of the neighborhood" award (trust me, it is very far from it right now), and our neighbors may begin to wonder if we still live here........I can assure you we are here.

We are doing the best that we can do.