I may be Home

I may be home, but I know what it's like to watch someone struggle to leave their family to go off to the military. I know what it feels like to cry each night because you get a feeling your sister is struggling. I know what it feels like to wait for that phone to ring and it be the person you are missing, I know what it feels like to be the sister, and girlfriend writing letters each night while crying and trying to be strong for them, I know what it's like to wait for that letter not knowing if you will get it or not. I know what it feels like when you think they have forgetten all about you.

I know what it's like to have those dreams that feel so real about the person you love coming home not the same, and not able to walk. I now know the pain of what it’s like to hug my sister while she cried in my arms days before she took her first plane trip. I know what it’s like to have to send someone out to tell my sister her grandma died a week after she left. I now know what it’s like to hurt because you’re scared for them.

I may be at home, but my family isn’t home with me, so it doesn’t feel like home anymore. Opening a snap or message now feels so empty, because it’s not her name, because it’s not her. She wasn’t just my sister, she was my best friend, the one I went to, to complain about life, to talk about my problems to get advice on things she knows nothing about, to ask her if she wanted to see her nephew.

I now know what it’s like to have to explain to my son where his aunt is and why she isn’t around anymore. I now know what it all feels like.

Siblings…. Fight all the time but they love each other…. When one needs the other they will always be there for the other. They won’t leave you hanging when shit gets rough…. No they will be there to hold your hand and tell you to suck it up and move on with your life. They may laugh when you fall but they will also be there to help you up it might take them a minute…. Someone might break your heart and they say, “I told you so” But they also want to beat the fuck out of that person for.

We were side by side for 18 years, we watched each other’s lives change and be turned up side down, but we helped each other through it, but it was time we took our own paths in life, the military got her, and well my life has me.

We haven’t ever been apart more than at most two weeks without seeing each other. 15 weeks hurts, more than anyone will ever know, but I have to stay strong for her, I have to help her through this, I have to make sure she knows that everyone is okay at home, even if we aren’t she has to know we are.

I have to make sure she gets the most letters out of everyone, I have to make sure she is safe, and happy, and doing well even though it is a living hell, she is strong, smart, wonderful, and soon she will be a MARINE, and I will be the worlds PROUDEST LITTLE SISTER! I will shout it from the roof top of every building. I will make sure the world knows that she is my sister, and she is my world, and I might be the baby but you mess with her and you mess with me. She’s all I have left of my momma, and I am going to protect her with my life, even though she thinks its her job, but really it’s both of our jobs to protect each other, and I will forever make sure she is safe and her dreams come true!

From the bottom of my heart, I love my sister, my boyfriend, and my brother, all three of you make me so proud. Thanks for making me the proudest person in the world, and even if you didn’t enlist in the military I would still be so proud of you all!