Away for the Holidays
10 Steps for Surviving the Holidays When Your Spouse is Deployed
by Jonathan DeBoard

Having your spouse deployed is difficult enough during the holidays, but don't forget your children. As adults, we are mature enough to understand our emotions, but children need the security of knowing all is still fine in their world, even if their mother or father is deployed.

It is important to understand that there is nothing you can do to fill the gap of your loved one being gone. That inner emptiness is there to remind you of the special place in your life that can only be filled by your military spouse.

So what can you do during the holidays to help with the separation? Here are 10 Steps to help.

1. Maintain Traditions

Just because your military spouse is deployed is no reason to fore go your normal holiday traditions. When we are deployed, we want you to continue putting up the tree and decorations. While it is important to know we are missed, that is no reason to be a martyr. If you have children, it is crucial for them to continue feeling like life is as normal as possible. So, put up the tree and decorations. Celebrate the season and know this separation will not last forever.

2. Communicate With Your Family

It is healthy to have "family talks" with your children and let them talk about how they feel. As the parent, lead the discussion to things they can do instead of just talking about what they can't. Remember that you are the strength for your children, so demonstrate your love and concern for them.

3. Include Your Deployed Spouse

Talk about your holiday activities, take plenty of pictures of the home, the children, the pets, or just about anything else you can. Those pictures are the best way to capture the moments. Yes, they will have wished they were there, but the pictures will be the next best thing to being there. If there is a large family gathering or a large group of mutual friends, take a video camera and allow people to pass on short messages of support.

4. Check Your Pulse

Do you have a heartbeat? If yes, then celebrate the season! It serves absolutely no purpose to walk around declaring that since the love of your life is deployed, then you can't celebrate the holidays. Be like that and everyone will indeed feel sorry for you AND they will also stay as far away from you as possible. Life is meant for living and not a suspended animation. When we are deployed we want you to live and not merely survive until our return.

5. Support Your Deployed Spouse

Your military spouse would love to be home more than anything, so when writing or even speaking with them on the phone, don't berate them for being gone. This is not their choice. There is a mission that must be done, and your love and support will enable them to remain focused. Tell them you miss them, tell them when one of the kids is sick or the car had a flat tire. Just be sure and add how you got the tire fixed and their child got well. Yes, your loneliness is greater than words, but you are doing your part (and then some) until they return.

6. Ignore Rumors

Rumors have wings and lives of their own. A rumor doesn't have to be true to hurt. You will hear rumors of when the unit is returning and even rumors of what other spouses or families are doing. These words will rip hearts apart and destroy families, so ignore all rumors you hear. Also, never repeat to another person something that you might even believe is a fact, if repeating the fact can bring harm.

7. Stay in Touch With Your Spouse

Write often, send packages, and email even more. No matter how routine you think things are, for your deployed spouse they are priceless pictures of home. I suggest that once you write it out, read it again carefully before sending it. That is especially true ofemail. You'll need to be sure that the message sent is received the way you meant it.

8. Support Your Fellow Military Families

Help out other military families going through the same thing as you. Talk with them regularly. Share ideas. Most importantly, surround yourself with others who are also positive and uplifting. They will help make the deployment easier, and you just may make some new friends.

9. Search out other resources

Don't feel like you must carry the burden alone. The military has an abundance of resources and organizations committed to helping you during deployments. You, however, will need to take the first step. Contact your spouse's rear detachment and keep your contact information up-to date.

10. Focus on Reunion

Place presents under the tree for your military spouse from yourself as well as your children. This is in addition to any you may send by mail overseas. Once Christmas is over, it won't be necessary to keep the tree in place, but you can place the gifts in a special visible location where every day the children, and you, look at them. This is a visual reminder that your loved one is coming home, and when they do, they will open their gifts.

A Letter From a Military Wife

Dear Letters From Home,

When I first became an Army wife I was stuck smack dab in the middle of a military town in North Carolina. This led me away from my home and family in Illinois. Although challenging, it was here that I learned what it was like to become part of something important. This event taught me what it is like to be part of another family besides my own. At this time, I watched my husband go off to war, never knowing if I would see him again. After the depression of the realism sunk in, I became friends with those left behind.  I got to know other military wives and bonded with them in a sisterhood of shared grief, loneliness, anxiety, and watched hopefulness.  This experience changed my life and view points about the world forever.

Military wives have to be some of the strongest women, and for almost a year, I clung to my new family. Together, we sent our husbands away to fight in The War on Terrorism due to the devastating effects of September 11, 2001. We watched the televisions as we worked out in local health clubs. We woke each other up in the middle of the night (this terrified me several times for one naturally fears the worst) with news regarding the latest capture among the Muslim extremists. We celebrated together, or even alone, with our families as each birthday and precious holiday silently crept by. Mournfully, we watched and held up our extended families as they received news that their husband’s were killed in action. Thankfully, there were the times that we cheered together as our spouses returned to our arms unharmed. Later, after a short few months, we cried together for they were taken away from us again to repeat another devastating year...another year of being alone and repeating the same feelings again.

Thankfully, my husband came home healthy but not the same emotionally. We decided to return home to my hometown in Illinois. It was another world for us entirely. No one really seemed to understand what I experienced in that military community. I was astonished as to how many people seemed disconnected to the war in Iraq and how so many people really didn't appreciate what my husband had just done for his country...what I did for my country. I was hurt…no, I was angry!

I want to shout and shake many people into the reality of this world and the war we are in. I am insulted with every unreal reality show that is being aired on television, for these, I feel, are a way to numb our brains and keep us distracted from what is really going on in this world. I want each and every American to know what my daughter and I experienced. I want the world to know these heroines and their families for they are the true symbol of strength and courage.

While writing this letter, I realized today is Memorial Day. I am compelled with the need for Americans to not only honor the veterans but also their families. I would never trade the experience I had with these military wives for an instant, even though I would consider this one of the most challenging and hard times of my life. Some say that every experience we have, whether good or bad, can only make us stronger. The relationships with these women taught me how to be strong… stronger than I ever felt I could be. I thank each of them for giving me my voice and I forever will be grateful to them.