Bailey

I stood in the airport and watched as they loaded the luggage onto his plane. I pressed my hand against the glass and waited as they taxied away from the gate and then down the runway. I watched as it lifted up into the sky and took with it a big piece of my heart. Stupid plane!

The nice lady at the gate put her hand on my back. When I turned to look at her she smiled and handed me a tissue. I laughed sadly, as I took it and wiped the tears from my face. "It's really hard sometimes," she said as she watched out the window at his plane flying away. She rubbed my back a few times and them moved her arms to her chest and crossed them. She kept her eyes on the sky. "It will all be worth it."

I felt like I should tell her we weren't married, or maybe that we never really saw each other other than these torturous times at the airport. "It hurts," was all I could manage. She turned her face to me and nodded, her own eyes a little misty.

"I know. It doesn't get easier either. Young love, newly married, following him or staying behind." She shook her head. "In this country we ask our men and women to enlist while they're young. We take those years where they're supposed to figure out who they are and what they're doing here on this silly spinning planet, and we can never give them back. We dress them up—sometimes they're just little boys in big boy clothing. We arm them and teach them how to take a life. Then we move them all around the country, never really letting them stay anywhere long enough to grow roots.

"We ask for everything from them, but we don't always consider the price of that request. You have to live it to know what it costs." She turned her body toward me and rested a hip on the window. "I know how much that costs. It doesn't get easier, but it's always worth it. He's going to grow up into a man that knows the value of trust. He's going to learn that he can trust you and that no matter what he sees out there," she pointed out the window off into the distance, "he can always come back to your warm, soft, loving arms."

I stared out the window too, as if I could see him out there somewhere. "We haven't really had a chance to get there yet." I wanted to. I wanted to know that he was mine and that we would get through this. I hadn't gotten to hold him long enough or tell him how I really felt.

She laughed and then pretended to fan herself, "You could have fooled me. Woo wee." I felt my cheeks heat up, and I laughed through my clearing tears. "Love is love, sweetheart. If there's one thing I've learned from being married to a Marine, it's that God made them different. He made them strong, brave, handsome, and impossible NOT to fall in love with. It's almost like he knew what we'd ask of him, so he made him irresistible. That boy loves you. I was standing way over there," she turned and pointed to her podium, "and I could feel it like it had slinked over my way and slapped me right in the face."

We both laughed. I used the tissue to clear my glasses and then put them back on my face. His plane was a tiny dot in the sky, but I still watched as it moved away in the distance. She sighed beside me, "Stick it out and one day, I promise, you will look back on these moments as some of your favorites. Nothing is a better love story than a military man and the woman who he comes home to." She winked at me and then left to get back to her job.

I stayed at the window until I was sure I couldn't see his plane anymore. Then I went home to where I could stare at my computer screen until I was connected to him again.

****What was your longest goodbye? Please remember to vote and share!