families

I want to take a moment to talk about family.

This weekend we drove to Flower Mound for a funeral. Grandma passed from this world June 29th. She wasn't my Grandma, but she was family.

I stood by Jeni as guests started to enter the church and offer condolences for her loss. They'd then turn to me and introduce myself, expecting to me to say I was a cousin or maybe an in-law of some kind.

"I'm Analee and I'm Navy family."

My Grammy always talks about Air Force families they still keep in contact with 40 years later and I never understood. When David and I were dating, his first deployment was so isolating. It was more than long distance. It was 9 months without a phone call, a few lines of email every 3 days saying he was safe and missed me. I was in it alone.

Moving to Washington was my first experience in a military community. We knew each other just a few days before we started helping plan weddings, drive sick kids to the emergency room in the middle of the night or spend the night in each others beds when the loneliness grew too great.

Navy family had to be best friends from back home, mom's, sisters, substitutes for husbands. You come together because there is no one else.
And you bond together.
We can not simply lose touch or drift apart.
You show up and hug and cry and love.

Because we are family.