I had posted this previously but i thought it might be a good thing to repost (kinda long)

[elananme]

This is a story, really more a compilation of memories i wrote last year i believe and thought some of you especially you military moms might want to read. Its called Christmas memories of a navy brat!

As a child of a father in the navy, holidays were always high tension, even when he was home. My father spent 25 years in the navy during some of the most high crisis times in our history. I can't remember many Christmases when he was home.

I remember in particular, one Christmas when we believed he would not be home for Christmas. The ombudsman called on the 23^rd of December and said "Come to the base, we have some news!!!" When we got to the base we saw my dad's submarine coming in out of the bay. It was to us a Christmas miracle. I believe I was about 8 or nine and still believed in Santa. Of course, to me at the time, I believed Santa had given me my dearest wish to have my father home for Christmas.

When we got back to the house and he saw how we had decorated the house he cried. It wasn't fancy, in fact it was kind of plan now that I think back on those years. My younger brother and I had made all sorts of Christmas decorations for everything from the tree to the doors and windows, out of constructions paper. Angels, reindeers, bells and wreaths all made out of the prettiest colors in the pack of paper. I can still remember the glisten of tears in my dads eyes as he glanced upon what he then called "a Christmas wonderland!".

Every indoor surface of our house was covered in anything our childish minds could devise a way to invent with paper, glue, scissors, and tape. Paper chains, tissue paper snowflakes, streamers turned into tinsel for the tree. We even made paper ornaments for the tree. I can remember only a few times when I have seen my dad cry and I believe that Christmas was the first.

I, in my childish mind, thought he was upset because we hadn't used all the fancy decorations he had bought the year before. "Why are you angry, daddy?" I asked in my young girl squeaky voice, lip quivering on the verge of tears. "Don't you like our decorations? We made them special just for you!" He looked down at me and said nothing as one single tear crawled slowly down his face, and then slowly turned to look at my brother who was still quietly hiding behind my mother. He looked to me again and just slowly knelt down, to be eye to eye with me. He didn't say anything for the longest time. I remember the fear and panic building in me as I waited patiently for some answer from him. "We'll take them down, daddy; I promise we'll put up your prettier decorations." I said finally unable to take waiting, tears still threatening behind my eyes. I sniffled a bit, and blinked rapidly, trying to keep the tears from coming pouring down my eyes as I stared back into my daddy's still glistening eyes.

I remember thinking how pretty his eyes were, all sparkly, like the glitter on our decorations twinkling in the sunlight. Finally, he said "I have never seen anything, in all the places I have been, places you can't even imagine yet, seen anything as wonderful or beautiful as this little Christmas wonderland. I couldn't have gotten a better present ever in all my life! Thank you, tiger lily! It's beautiful." As he hugged me close to his chest. Its funny to me now but at the time I remember thinking how good he smelled. Like salt and machine oil, and something else I still to this day can't identify. It was the most wonderful smell ever!

"Come," he said as he took my hand and then reached to pick up my brother, "show me all the wonderful things you have made for me." We all waked inside together, and he took in a sharp breath as he saw every inch of uncovered wall surface decorated with something we had created. Of course, now as I look back, I can't believe my mother let us use every scrap of every kind of paper we could find, and put it all over everything, but if was wonderful at the time.

There was a main centerpiece on the top of the television, a picture I had drawn. It was a picture of what I wanted more than anything for Christmas. Him, my daddy, home for Christmas, and all of us, the family, together at Christmas, was all I really wanted. When he saw the picture and realized what it was, the tears began to flow. We spent the next three days doing all the normal family Christmas things. Then he was gone again for six months. We found out later that he had only come home because there had been something wrong with his boat that needed to be fixed.

That was the last time he would be home for Christmas for 4 or five years. Every year after that we made a few cards and pictures to send him, since we knew as we got older that daddy wasn't going to make it home again. Every year I remember my mother crying as she put the Christmas turkey in to cook. I remember the bittersweet look on her face as we opened presents leaving the few we had gotten my dad unopened under the tree until we took down the tree at New Years. 

Then they were put up in the closet until he got home again next. I remember listening to the news hearing about the "Cold War" the "Russians" and not understanding what that meant. I also remember my mother anxiously listening to every nights news cast waiting to hear about what ever was going on in the world at that moment. I remember my non religious mother saying prayers before bed that God bring her man home safe because his babies needed him and so did she.

And I remember not too long ago the relief on my mothers face at my father retirement ceremony as the truth set in that he would never be gone at another holiday for the rest of his life. I can't remember any other Christmas that my dad was home until I was in high school.

Now in talking to my dad about what is was like for him during the holidays when he was gone he always answers the same. "Hell" is always his response. Even though he was on a ship full of other men, all in the same position as him, he was lonely. He said that there were many nights when he would hear crying in the bunk. Only to realize it was him and he wasn't the only one. Of course, they never talked about with each other but they all knew what it was like.

He talks about wishing he could to talk to us and send us letters, and wishing we could send him stuff. He tells us that when he was underwater you couldn't tell when the sun was up or down, and not be sure about anything around you, and that was even worse when it was the holidays, the pure and utter loneliness was unbearable for him.

Now it's the holidays again and I call my parents house and wait with baited breath for someone to answer the phone. And when I first hear the deep baritone voice of my father, for a brief moment I am brought back to that moment when he called our home a winter wonderland. Then we start the conversation and I realize that there are now again men and women away from home and I feel sorry for their families because I remember what it was like to always watch my mother wait for the call from the chaplain telling her that something bad had happened. Of course we never got that call but the fear and worry was there every day even when I got older and understood more about the world.

I want to remember only the good times we had as I was growing up but mostly all I remember especially during the holidays is fear and worry. I wish only the best memories for all that are separated at Christmas this year and remind them that its not forever.