I can not believe how truly fast this year went by. Last year, Rob was still in Iraq and the boys and I spent our first holidays without him. It has honestly been surreal with him being home, sometimes when he is at work, I start thinking back to when he was deployed. I honestly think that once you have a loved one deployed, you never forget the feelings that go along with a deployment.
Even though we are still months away from our move, we have started to clean and throw things out that we don’t want to take with us. I was going through our filing cabinet which has all of our important papers in it and throwing out old and expired power of attorney paperwork. I came across Rob’s will that he did almost 2 years ago before deploying. I’ve read the thing a million times, but each time I stumble upon it, I can’t help but read it over again. I could tell you everything it says, and what he wanted done if something were to happen to him. Some people probably think I’m a little nuts for reading them again, but I just can’t seem to help myself.
Rob had more than a few scares, there were times he honestly thought he wasn’t going to make it home. We still count our blessings that he made it safely home, and still think about those who lost their lives and didn’t get to come home to their families.
One of the hardest things we did when gearing up for deployment was discuss that what ifs…..What if he’s injured? What if he lost a limb? What if he was a POW? What if he lost is life? We discussed all his wishes that he wanted if anything had happened to him. Discussing how he wanted his funeral if he did get KIA was not the best conversation any couple can have. I’ve known couples that avoided that conversation and then the bad happened and the spouse had no clue what her husband wanted. One spouse was so afraid of messing everything up, and it not being what he wanted, she had a nervous break down because of it.
Rob had chosen a song that he wanted played at his funeral if he had lost his life. When that song comes on the radio, I instantly think back to his will, and the deployment. He carefully wrote everything out, I was to follow everything to a T and not mess it up. The song he chose was “If I don’t make it back” by Tracy Lawrence. Here are a few of lyrics from the song.
He said, boys, if I don’t make it back
Have a beer for me, don’t waste no tears on me
On Friday night sit on the visitors side
And cheer for the home team
Drive my Camaro, 90 miles an hour down Red Rock Road
With ‘Born to Run’ blastin’ on the radio
And find someone good enough for Amy
Who will love her like I would have
If I don’t make it back
This song hit home for so many reasons, we, as a family go to locale high school foot ball games, and no matter what team it is, we sit on the visitors side and cheer for both teams. Granted he didn’t have a Camaro, but he did have an old beat up Ford he wanted his buddies to drive at 90 miles per hour. Lastly, my name is Amie, not spelled the same but obviously said the same. The have a beer for me part, I was instructed to have several cases of beer, and at the funeral, he wanted everyone in attendance to have a beer for him.
Who knows, if and when he deploys again if his will would be the same, he may change it entirely when that time comes again. But I can tell you this much, if the worst were to happen, I can honestly say I would follow all his wishes for him. And this is why I encourage every couple getting ready for a deployment to have these discussions no matter how hard they are.
If you haven’t heard the song before, you can hear it here. Not the greatest quality, but it was the best I could find. If I don’t make it back
