In the late night hours of Halloween night, my closest friend had a major stroke.
She and her husband had a normal Halloween, pizza with the kids followed by trick-or-treating, and putting them to bed despite the sugar high. Sometime in the wee hours, my friend went to the bathroom and fell, and her husband found her paralyzed on one side.
Words can't express the terror I feel each and every time I think about her helpless there on the bathroom floor, with her two preschoolers asleep down the hall. As a military wife whose husband is deployed right now, I feel overwhelming panic at the thought of something happening to my kids mother. (That would be me.) My friend is also a military wife, and I know everyone who loves that family has thought, Thank God, Thank God her husband was home.
He called 911 immediately, got someone to stay with the kids, and my friend had surgery just a few hours later. Physically, she is recovering miraculously well. But there is much she can't handle yet, and will need to lean on her husband and friends for awhile. Very hard to do for someone so self-sufficient as a military wife. But military wifedom also carries the blessing of a lifestyle that makes us part of a community.
I've only known her for a year, but she is one of my closest friends. We who move a lot and who single-parent our kids much of the time learn to make friends quickly. Close friends. Friends who come over for major holidays, who change your kids' diapers unasked, who make plans to meet at Starbucks at a moments notice. Because we need each other, and we've learned how to bond quickly.
So I will do what I can for my friend, I want to help her however she needs me. But I don't like this reminder that we, the spouses left behind, are still vulnerable too. I want to believe that mommies can't get sick, not REALLY sick. They never fall down. They don't get hurt. They can't have strokes.
I guess maybe there really is a reason besides creaky airducts that I don't sleep well at night when my husband is deployed.
