Day 66 Dad

I find myself more preoccupied than ever. Each day sometimes is a struggle in all that I do. I have a hard time concentrating and more often than not I am staring out into space nothingness just daydreaming. As the days and hours grow short here and the darkness of the night however still and peaceful is the ruler of the 24 hours of a calendar day, I still am hoping for quickness in the dial. I can’t talk about it many feel the mother is the one who is most affected by having a child at war, but it is the whole family. The feeling is woven into every fabric of our day and is never far from our thoughts. Even our extended family of all our exchange kids is affected; they know Zach and I am sure that at some point if not more than simply seeing the news from Afghanistan they think of him.

His time in that hell is drawing down and for all of us it will be a great relief when he calls or emails us from his home base in Germany. We all worry about our children, we want the best for them and it is so hard as a parent to know that your child is in harms way in a nation were probably most people don’t trust him or may not even like him, and where many would do him harm is sometimes bordering on unbearable. You rely on your faith in God and closeness of family to get through. I am thankful for my family for Lisa who strong when I am not and hopefully I am the same for her. I am thankful to be able to spend a couple of hours with some young football players everyday as that is something I enjoy and share with Zach. Perhaps if he goes to a local school he can help me coach next year.

Zach and I have always been close as we enjoy so many of the same things. He and his mom are close and Zach is such a family kid. A kid? He is now a combat veteran who will probably be different, but I can hear the kid in him from time to time hopefully with time away from the images of war being a kid is all he will have to worry about for a while. Until school starts and studying…….

I look forward to watching football, finally going to Fenway park with him, even though we will over pay for the tickets and him just being at home for family get-together’s and challenging me to cooking duels. It is so close to happening yet it seems so far, my heart yearns for the clock to spin and time to fly!

Zach you are my hero, you are superman, I love you with all my heart.