One husband. Three
kids. Five deployments. Thirteen moves. Seventeen
years of military marriage. Thirty-nine years
of military brat status. An overseas tour.
A baby born while Dad was deployed. When Jacey
Eckhart adds up the elements of her life,
she doesn't find the script for the season
finale of "Desperate Housewives." Instead
Jacey has found the material for over 400
newspaper columns. Since 1998, "The Homefront"
has run in The Virginian Pilot, in Norfolk,
VA, home of the largest Navy base in the world.
Her book, "The
Homefront Club: The Hardheaded Woman's Guide
to Raising a Military Family" is now available.
My friends always swore that I would have to get married young. I
couldn't get a roommate to stay with me for more than, say, one bout
of salmonella poisoning. Which was so crazy. Who knew you were supposed
to do dishes EVERY DAY?
So imagine my gums flapping during my last conversation with Beth
Bailey, Norfolk's Flagship Military Spouse of the Year. During her
husband's last deployment, Beth, 41, and her teenagers asked another
military wife to move in with them.
Unheard of, I know. But it gets better. Not only did roommate Jean
Davis, 27, come with a one-year-old, but she was pregnant and due
to deliver during the deployment.
Most people heard that and wanted to know all the particulars: How
many meds they were on. How big the house was. How well they knew
each other. How they split expenses. How it was to have a newborn
in the house again. How they prevented salmonella poisoning.
Beth kind of shook that off. Especially the bit about the salmonella.
Because by being focused on the particulars of that living arrangement
we miss the big picture. Beth and Jean aren't saying that all military
families should become a modern day Kate and Allie during deployment.
They are saying that sharing the intimacies of life lessened the loneliness
that is part of that separation.
We aren't talking about sexy intimacies either. This the intimacy
of sharing a couch, cooking dinner, doing dishes, checking homework,
pouring juice. It's the intimacy of sharing the workaday details of
soccer practice pick-ups and having another person who can get baby
wipes at Walgreens. "It's different than other friendships," said
Beth. "It's different than just visiting with someone, going to lunch."
The more Beth talked, the more I realized that this is the kind of
family situation we used to have in this country and don't have anymore.
The way American life has turned out, the extended family is more
e-x-t-e-n-d-e-d than family sometimes.
"Because the Navy pulls you away from extended family there is a desire
to replicate that," says Beth. I knew exactly what she was talking
about. I've had that same kind of "sisterly" support during deployment,
too. I didn't live with anyone else, but I know my baby daughter took
more baths in Jeanne's bathtub than she took in our own. Kim the Vegetarian
used to come over every Wednesday night for dinner when her husband
was deployed. The Delaney kids used to hang out on my porch eating
cookies like they were cousins and not just friends.
Perhaps we desire that intimacy, require that intimacy, now more than
ever. "Not to sound totally corny, but (our husbands) were both in
harm's way. It was nice to know that they were over there together,"
said Beth.
How does this translate for those of us who want the intimacy but
don't want to share a roof? Beth suggests that two families can cook
dinner together every week. Clean up together. Hang out. The goal
is be comfortable having another woman know where you keep your drinking
glasses and to be able to pour her own Diet Coke. She has to be more
than a guest.
We gallop through our lives during deployment--so much to do, so little
time. And then sit up at night wondering at our loneliness. Consciously
combining the intimacy of every day life with the life of another
woman may sound like a throwback to another time, but it works. At
least it is worth a try.
