I cannot promise you every night of my life. I cannot promise to
be beside you for every difficult moment, every trial, and every hardship. In
truth, I can promise you that I will not be with you for most. I will leave you
at inconvenient times. Any special date to us may be tainted with the
anniversary of the death of one of my friends. I will ask you to take over
whatever life we have built together for months and years at a time. And will
then crash back into that life that you have used your sweat, your tears and
your heartache to keep together, and try to take it back as I knew it before.
I will shut you out at times because it will be the best way for me to hold
it together at that moment. I will lie to you. I will tell you I don't know
things when I do. I will not always tell you where I am going, when I will be
back, or who I am with. I may not call you for weeks and months and you will
not be able to call me. You will ask questions that I won't answer. You will
know answers to questions that you will hope you never need. I will share
things with my brothers that you will never understand. They will know things
about me that you never will. They will be a support to me in some things that
you cannot be. I will miss birthdays. I will miss anniversaries. I may need
time to process things that seem natural to everyone else. It will seem that
someone or something will always take precedence over you. You may lose me
long before you ever thought possible.
I will uproot you and ask you to
reestablish our family anywhere in the world, in any season, at any time over
and over again. Sand and mud will be tracked through your halls from the boots
I am too tired to take off. I will leave you when you beg me not to. I will
stand at attention while you cry beside me. I will not turn my head and I will
walk away. I will knowingly break your heart. And I will do it again and again.
Whenever you want to call and you have no number to dial, I will be wanting to
do the same. I will protect everything that we have created together with every
fiber of my being while you do the same back at home. I will honor you in
everything every moment that we are apart and every moment that I am with you.
I will fight harder and push further knowing that I do so for you. And I will
carry you with me in everything, until my sandy boots once again sit just
inside our door.
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