Reunions: Expectations and Reality

Reunions are the best! Planning, preparing, and dreaming about reunions are what helps me through separations. It isn’t just “deployments” that call for a reunion either. Anything that takes my husband from home for an extended period of time rates a reunion.

In the early years of our marriage, a few days apart rated a special reunion. We were young, childless, and in love. Now he needs to be gone a minimum of two weeks to rate more than a high five and “glad you’re home” when he walks through the door. We are still in love, but no longer young or childless. Plus, separations became part of our family’s culture. We figured out the formula and what worked for us.

But oh, those times when your heart aches to see your sweetheart and it’s just days away. It’s like Christmas, Easter, and the Fourth of July! However, on occasion it can be excitement and apprehension mixed with a little nausea. Especially if you have broken, wrecked, damaged, or mangled anything in particular that your spouse might have been partial to. It happens…

Desert Storm was the first really long separation we experienced. I was used to being on my own, but not for long periods of time, usually only a few weeks or a month or two. My husband was a RECON Marine and that meant a lot of mini reunions, but this particular reunion was after almost 11 months of little communication and high anxiety over his safety.

In August of 1991, I waited anxiously as my young Marine arrived walking in formation with his company. I was twenty-three, our daughter was eleven months old, and we had on matching patriotic jumpsuits my mother had made. One Marine told me how cute my daughter and I were. Then he said we looked like we were wearing his grandmother’s curtains.

Despite the comment on my outfit, that particular reunion was a sweet one. We had no expectations of anything other than a big hug and kiss. Those are the best: no pressure, no firm plans. Just each other.

While at a joint duty, our family had grown. We had six children and I quickly learned that we needed to have some reunion expectations:

• If my husband came home from a mission as scheduled, I would try and have some of the house clean, dinner available, and some laundry done.
• If he was coming home earlier than expected and gave me at least twenty-four hours notice, I would try to clear a path from the door to the kitchen to the bedroom, start some laundry, and order pizza.
• If he ever “surprised” me by coming home early, that was wonderful, but he needed to be careful as he opened the front door, step over whatever the kids had left there, and start cleaning up. It would also be a good idea to bring dinner with him.

It was a little bumpy at first, but this worked for us and we had a lot of wonderful mini reunions during our four years there.

In 2005, we had our first Iraq deployment and worst reunion ever. My husband came home unexpectedly, wounded and a week after major surgery in Germany.  I didn’t get to the hospital at Camp Lejuene before the bus arrived from the airfield. I was so frantic about cleaning the house for his return I lost track of time. I had only returned from Germany two days earlier; I had to put my mom, who had come to care for my six children while I was gone, on a plane; and all of this only two months after my father passed away. None of us were in our right minds, and it was a somber reunion to say the least. I have never been able to get the image of my husband waiting alone outside the hospital for his family to be there for him out of my mind. Oh gosh, writing this is making me sad. I think I need to go buy him something.

In 2007, our second Iraq deployment reunion was wonderful. The house was clean, I was super skinny and tan, we had banners, we all looked adorable, and most importantly, no one was hurt and we were there waiting for him.

Kelli’s Quick Tips for Reunions:

• Don’t listen to naysayers and negative Nellie’s. You are quite capable of being morose and depressing without their help, thank you very much.
• Do expect to wait. And wait, and wait some more. Plug it into your brain now so you aren’t annoyed by the time your service member actually stands in front of you.
• Don’t over plan. Your service member needs the downtime to just be in his or her home again and with family.
• Ask you service member what he or she has been thinking  when it comes to the reunion. If your service member wants to immediately use leave time to go on a trip, by all means do it! Just make sure you aren’t the only one making the plans.
• Do attend the return and reunion briefs. There is a cycle to deployments and there is a cycle to the reunion. The information you gather there as well as from other spouses will help you set realistic expectations.
• And finally, DO try and fix or replace anything you have mangled, broken, wrecked, or destroyed. If you can’t, then make sure you have an extremely entertaining story about how it happened. This is usually what I have to go with.