My week started off on Sunday with a get together for old friends. Pre-war civilian friends. Catching up with them was interesting. They're doing new things. Nobody asked what I was up to.
They all had a pretty good idea that whatever I was doing centered around military support and our wounded and injured in the hospitals but nobody wanted to know anything more than that.
As a matter of fact, anytime the conversation looked like it was even maybe going in that direction, they would change the subject to something more "palatable" to their tastes. And they'd get that "deer in the headlights" look. I could almost hear them thinking,"Oh no!! SemperFiWife is going THERE"
Sigh.... We've had a conversation recently here at Spousebuzz about what we are now vs. what we were in the past. My experience on Sunday cemented that idea for me.
And I honestly don't understand. The men and women that I meet through volunteering at the hospitals humble me with their courage and their service. You see, they're not just surviving, they're thriving. Maybe they are having to relearn how to do something we take for granted like walking but they are doing it with determination and humor. They are trying new things. One of my guys learned how to play ice hockey with prosthetics on and he's so good that the instructors want him to teach kids how to play.
Why wouldn't you want to know someone like that? Or someone like the young Soldier who came to a fishing event last week wearing a t-shirt that read,"$10 for the leg story"? That's a guy with a damned good sense of humor, don't you think?
And knowing them gives me perspective. The impediments I perceive as mountains are really just molehills. Looking at what they can overcome makes me realize that anything is possible.
My experience Sunday just makes me feel like I live in an alternate universe. I think I prefer it to the one my friends are living in. I'm not sure that even makes sense but..there it is.
