Sunday, August 15, 2010

Sad...sad... the bitter wail :)

We got up this morning (Sunday) with the anticipation that we would hear Sara's voice today.  Off we went to church and waltzed into class to let our dear teacher Joe know that we would attend the earlier service and be monitoring the phone to be able to take the call.  He proceeded to announce to the class Sara's accomplishments at boot camp and let me toot her horn a bit... Is it OK to loose button's at church?
Thanks Joe.  I will let Sara know how the class has been praying for her.

I know I listened to the sermon, but how many times did I check my phone to see if it was still working... ?  Ha!

Everytime it rang the heart lept.  I kind of planned our day around a two hour window that I had written Sara would be the best time for a call.  So when that time hit (12p to 2p our time) the phone did not leave the hand.  "Better check again...is that phone still working?"  Calls came in from grandparents and sisters..."has she called yet?"

I dug through a tattered old (should have already gotten rid of) box in the garage and found a cassette tape recorder and set it up to record the call... you, know, the desk top version with the slide out handle... long before the Walkman bonanza (not to mention iPods or other forms of MP3 players).  Using resources available, the idea was to get the call on tape then capture the recording on my iPhone to transfer to the desktop, etc...  My "digital age" son Jonathan walked up with furrowed eyebrows..."What is that?" and "Wow...an antique!"  "Does it work?"  C'mon... this was "state of the art"... OK...40 years ago... good grief, how and why do I still have that thing?  I was forced to look for a blank cassette... no joy... but ran across a cassette recording of my first child Amanda... at three months...  making happy noises and "talking" with her still new parents... that was cool...  Quite a lot of reminiscing as I looked through the memories of music of those days of our lives ... an old box of cassette tapes... at least I had gotten rid of the few 8-tracks I had collected... but I still have my little collection of LP's... goodness, I was proud of those... my own music... ha!  Gotta get all that stuff on CD somehow to listen... and remember!

So I waited.  We all waited... while we worked of course! 

The time came and went and Dad that I am, knowing that Sara would NOT have missed this call, I began to wonder.  Wonder turned to concern.  And by 4pm, worry.  What could have happened?  Is she OK?  Did she make it through crucible?  Would they call if something was wrong? And so progressed the downward spiral of thought.  I imagined her recruiter driving up!  Silly mind!

I popped off a text to Joyce, a same platoon new Marine mom and she replied with information about her daughter... and had not gotten a call either.

Then to an experienced Marine Dad with great insight... who immediately replied that "NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS!"  and that with 600 plus new Marines vying for phones, that it would be probable that Sara would not get the chance to get to a phone before she had to be back at her Squad Bay.

Ok, I feel much better, though now I am thinking of Sara and her probable disappointment, knowing that we were waiting on this end... like she did on her end.  I look forward to hearing her story and comforting her in retrospect.

This is going to make Thursday even more precious.

The emotional roller coaster attached to my Sara's life continues... a "loop the loop" in the adventure!


.

No comments:

Post a Comment