My Baby Wears Combat Boots

Baby Zipperhead's NWU's (Navy Work Uniform)

Baby Zipperhead's "Trash"

...flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. In a few short hours, my youngest child will leave this home for good to make her own way in the world. I left for work this morning with a heavy heart, forcing my feet to move at the normal rhythm of a Monday morning routine, but I didn't want to do it. Sunday, when Mother's Day arrives, her absence will be potently felt. I know she's as ready as anyone is at this time in life where we all venture out of the "nest" to create an adult life, but that doesn't make it any easier to let her go. Goodbyes have never been my strong suit anyway. Time passes in strange ways, speeding up with you want it to slow down, and dragging endlessly when you wish it would just hurry the hell up and "get here".

I am restless, when I should be studying, unable to focus on any one thing. I shuffle papers, stop to clean something random, or sit on the deck and stare up at skies that hang quietly overhead, unconcerned with mortal things. My baby wears combat boots, like her father before her, and her grandfather before him, and I'm so proud of her I don't know how my heart can even hold it all. And yet, our country is an embarrassment, with a political shit-storm front and center on a global stage, while the bits and pieces of government beneath that are as shady as the carpetbaggers of old. I think to myself, "What is she, and others like her, going to defend? So many spit daily on the Constitution and its vision, while many others would die to defend a way of life that I believe to be the heartbeat of this Nation."

I am one random woman in a sea of nearly seven billion people on this planet, sending one random child off to serve her country. In the grand scheme of things, neither she, nor I am particularly "unique". But she is...flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. Without me (and her father, and a Creator who placed her soul inside that body she occupies), she would not exist. Without her, I wouldn't want to exist. And when she goes, she takes a piece of me with her.