Catch the Wind: My Journey with Caroline

My tears finally slow to a stop. Wiping my face, I lift my head, breath still catching in shaky little hitches.

A quiet voice offers me a tissue, and only then do I realize Mom has walked up without a sound. Now she’s settling onto the bank right beside me. Bracing for a scolding, I’m thrown off when she just sighs instead and tells me she’s sorry all of this is so hard.

I beg her to please not go. Please just stay home with us. Tilting her head the way she does whenever she’s turning something over in her mind, she tells me talking usually helps, and asks exactly what scares me about this.

I’ve never told Mom I’m scared before, not once, but she reads me too well, and suddenly it all wants to come pouring out at once. The idea of helping Dad manage the twins while she’s gone terrifies me, since he’ll still have his nursing shifts at the hospital on top of everything, and there won’t be a spare minute left for my own friends.

From there it only gets worse. I’m scared of being miserable every single day without Mom, scared something might hurt her so far away, and most of all scared just picturing her ship alone on the open ocean. Navy ships look massive right up until you compare them to all that water, and just picturing it sends my pulse racing.

When Mom offers to describe the ship, I cut her off before she can say a word, refusing to hear any detail. She lets it drop and reminds me instead that Dad will be counting on me while she’s gone. Fine, I mutter, unable to smooth the edge out of my voice.

Smoothing my hair back from my face, Mom admits she wishes she didn’t have to be gone this long, that she’ll count every single minute away from me. Still, serving makes her proud, and as a navy doctor, deployment means she’ll get to help countless people. She reminds me that service runs in the family, stretching back through her father and his father before that, over 200 unbroken years.

Winding a long blade of grass around my thumb, I decide that tradition sounds like a pretty weak excuse for leaving your own kids behind. Almost like Mom heard the thought, Mom adds softly that she also wants to help make the world safer, for me, for my sisters, even for children I might have myself one day. The idea is too big for me to hold onto, so I just stay quiet.

Mom tells me she needs me to be brave, and asks whether I think I can manage that. I shrug, not meeting her eyes. Dad already warned me that the day she leaves is exactly when I’ll need the most courage, since crying and making a scene would only make it harder for her to go. He told me all she needs to hear from us is that we’re proud of her and that we love her, followed by a smile and a wave goodbye.

Just picturing myself watching Mom walk away brings the tears stinging back. I doubt I’ll even manage to see her off along with everyone else. Maybe I’ll just hide out here by the pond instead and skip the goodbye completely.

More than almost anything, I wish I had Mom’s kind of bravery. Right now, I don’t.