Going Home | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Going Home | Previous Challenge Entry
By Deanna Wessel
07/25/05
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I pulled the seat belt across my bulging belly and snapped it into its lock. Baby Micah was scheduled to arrive in about three weeks. Three weeks seemed like an eternity back then. There were so many things to do. I just didn’t seem to be able to remember any of them.
“Ready?” Dad asked, as he glanced in the rear view mirror.
“Ready, Grandpa!” exclaimed Ellie, our two-year-old bundle of joy buckled into the car seat next to me.
“She doesn’t have a clue,” I’d whispered to myself. How could she? She’s too young. How could she possibly realize that she’ll never see her Daddy again? How could she understand that life was never going to turn out the way we’d thought it would. How could she? How?
Blinking back the tears, I stared out the car window not really even seeing the sights as we passed them. The stone monuments and marble buildings didn’t mean a thing that day. It was a hot steamy Monday in July and we were headed back home in my parent’s car while my husband’s body went on an airplane. You see, he’d been critically wounded in Iraq and then flown to Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington D.C. He’d fought hard for his life, real hard. We had almost four weeks together. Then God decided his time on earth was over and took him home.
It’s been three months since that long car trip home and still, life goes on. Oh, I sometimes miss my husband so bad it hurts. I miss his smile and his laugh. I miss the way his lower lip quivered in his sleep. I miss the way he’d touch the tip of my nose with his finger. I miss the way he smelled after a shower and the times at the end of the day when he’d gently kiss the back of my neck.
I miss the way he’d throw Ellie into the air and catch her as she squealed with excitement. I miss the way he used to read bedtime stories to his little girl and how he’d sit her on his shoulders so she could see the whole world.
Micah is eight weeks old now. Often when I look at him I catch glimpses of his father. He has his dad’s soft brown eyes and his lower lip quivers in his sleep too. I mourn when I realize afresh that little Micah will never meet his dad here on earth. They’ll never toss a baseball or go fishing on a Saturday morning. They'll never share bedtime stories or skip rocks across a quiet lake.
But this I do know: life on earth isn’t the whole story! A day is coming when I’ll see my husband again and our kids will be with their dad. For I am certain that though “weeping may remain for a night...rejoicing comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5b, NIV) I choose to cling to the knowledge that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him,” (Romans 8:28a, NIV) and I can rest in His presence.

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