Iraq Homecoming

Before deployment last summer

He's coming home! Derek will be home on leave! He will be here at 2pm on Thanksgiving Day.

Today I shopped for Thanksgiving dinner and the weekend to follow. The cart was full and as I pushed the grocery cart to my car, another woman shopper stopped at the car next to mine.


She surveyed my full cart, then her own. "I sometimes wonder if Thanksgiving is worth all the trouble," she said.


"I've felt the same way sometimes," I told her. "But this year one of my sons is coming home on leave from Iraq, so it is well worth very bit of trouble to me."


She stared a moment, then nodded. "You're right. It's worth every minute."
My Thanksgiving will be the gift of a son returning at 2pm on Thanksgiving Day.

It will be the faces of his four children as they run to greet him. It will be his face as he gathers them in. It will be the joy of sitting down to dinner with his face in our circle. It will be the circle of 4 sons (one will not be there, he is still serving in the Air Force in Germany) who will come together to celebrate. It will be the gift of a family that loves each other, every day, no matter the distance that separates us.


Yes, it's worth the trouble.