Last night Maddy had her very first Petawawa sleepover. She had a few friends over for her 9th birthday...a few weeks late! LOL Story of my life. All in all it was a fun night. There were four little girls and one boy. They had pizza, carved pumpkins, watched Marmaduke and just had fun. I drove most of the kids home and one little girl stayed the night. Maddy was thrilled, she loved having a friend sleeping over and she and this little girl really click. J (shortened to protect the names of the innocent! LOL) is a great kid. She's very much like Maddy in the sense that she is still 9 years old. She like to play. That is a trait hard to find in a 9 year old in this day and age! She's polite and kind and was just a pleasure to have around! Well I met J's Mom a couple of weeks ago and found out that J's Dad had been killed a few years ago in Afghanistan. Ouch. I opted not to tell Maddy. I felt that when the time was right and when she felt like she wanted her to know J would tell Maddy herself. At that time I would talk to her about it. I envisioned a lengthy conversation, possibly a few tears, a real Mother/daughter life lesson talk...I dreaded the thought, but prepared myself for what I would say.
When J's Mom came to pick her up she came in for a visit. We chatted for an hour or so and during that time the subject came up. In hushed tones I told her that I hadn't told Maddy, I was waiting until J felt like she wanted Maddy to know. J's Mom said she understood and we continued our conversation quietly. Maddy came through a couple of times and listened, but never really seemed interested. After J and Mom went on their way I talked with Jeff and we decided we should probably go ahead and tell Maddy, I know she had been listening and had figured out something was up. So I called her in the room. I asked her if she had heard what J's Mom and I were talking about, she said no. I told her it was something that I felt like she should know, and that it was sad news about J. Maddy looked at me so matter of factly and said, "Oh do you mean about J's Dad dying?" Dumbfounded I said Yes. I asked her if she knew how he died. "Yeah Mom he was killed in Afghanistan." I asked her how she knew, she said J told her a couple of weeks ago in school. WEEKS AGO?!?!?! She had found out this information a few weeks ago and had not even mentioned it to me. I asked her if she had any questions, she said, "Nope" and went back to play with Sarah.
My child knew her closest friend in school's Dad had been killed in Afghanistan and she never felt like she wanted to talk to me about it. Wow. Now, I'm fully aware that there will many many things that Maddy will keep from me in the years to come. There will be times when she has things that weigh very heavily in her life that she won't share with me...but right now, she still tells me pretty much everything that bothers her. That was the real blow to me, the thought that I haven't been able to shake all morning...it simply didn't really bother her. Okay, I don't mean that I'm worried that she wasn't sad, or felt for J...that's not it. She just wasn't shocked that her closest little girl friend's Dad had been blown up by a rocket, killed. Maddy's reality as a "military brat" is such that she isn't shocked to learn that about her friend. Again, Wow. When I was 9 I didn't know anyone whose Dad had passed away. It was a big deal if a kid had parents who were divorced...much less dead. How different our realites are. I know times change, but even today I don't think the kids attending Goshen Elementary school in Prospect KY have to deal very often with kids who have had their fathers killed in battle.
I am sad. Sad in a way that I never imagined I would be for my daughter. Sad that she has to see the world through the eyes of military child. In many ways I truly believe being a military child is a blessing. I do know it makes her a stronger, more empathetic child...I witnessed that as I listened to her comforting a little boy who was hiding in the little storage area under our stairs crying because he missed his Dad who is currently in Afghanistan. "Don't be sad, I know what it's like to really really miss your Daddy. I used to miss my Daddy most at night when I was trying to go to sleep. I would think about the coolest thing we were going to do when he got back, that's how I would be able to stop crying." Children are resilient. I know that, but sometimes it still just sucks when my child's reality is so glaringly different from what I envisioned it would be all those years ago when I dreamed of having a child...before my life became that of a military wife.
I am sad today, but tomorrow is a new day, a day when I will choose to count the many blessings we have as a military family...but today I am sad.
