You may have inferred from the title that my best friend would turn out to be much more. At the time, Stud (as he is affectionately known) and I were not dating. We had started dating a couple years before but broke up, somehow successfully navigating the "friend" territory for about a year and a half. I didn't know what his commitment to the USMC would mean for me, if anything. Friend or not, I was still in love with this man. Sending him off to boot camp with a letter written in green ink and a few photos was one of the hardest goodbyes I had ever experienced. There was no way to know what three months away would do to our relationship. Would he even miss me? Little did I know that harder "goodbyes" would come.
Over the course of the three-month boot camp, letters flew back and forth from Minnesota to California and my heart held out the hope that my love would not return void, that something would change between us and the relationship that had been brewing for about three years would turn romantic again. I was surprised at how eager he was for me to write him and I, of course, was just as anxious to receive word from him, scouring each letter that came for indications of his sentiment.
When the final letter came, the three months were finally almost up and I read with an excitement that I can remember to this day that he wanted me to come to California to see him graduate. I packed my bags with carefully selected outfits for each day and boarded a plane for CA to see one of the coolest events of a military career: boot camp graduation ceremonies. I spent three days in CA being awed by the thick air of pride and history on base and happily enjoying this time together. Best of all, Stud got to come home with us for a ten-day leave.
As the days of his leave flew by I knew that there was one important conversation that I needed to have with this Marine before he went back to complete his training. He was oblivious that sitting through a movie next to him at the theater was almost torture thinking about "the talk" that was looming. It was pretty simple. All I had to say was, "I still love you. Do you, will you ever, love me too...again?" I didn't want to ask him, though. In all the time that we had been friends after we broke up, my feelings for him never dissolved. I did not relish the thought of being rejected and I was so convinced that his answer would be no that I dreaded even asking.
The confidence to ask came from God himself in what I now call faithful interaction. God's love never fails and his tangible and ethereal interactions with us are sweet evidence.
"It's like a shooting star," I told my mom during the week that he was home. "There's no way of knowing if it will come, when it will come. But when it does, you can't deny it. It's suddenly there." I don't know why I related his love to a shooting star but the analogy made sense to me. Would Stud one day, or over the course of weeks or months, see me as more than a friend? I didn't know. I couldn't know. Maybe even he couldn't know. But if it was going to happen, when it did happen, it would be clear. Like a shooting star.
I knew on one of the last nights of his leave that I needed to ask the question, for myself, and for him. I needed to know the answer and I needed him to know that I didn't see him as just a friend no matter how much I tried to behave that way to preserve our friendship. I had known him and be best friends with him for three years but I was really nervous. A big part of me still wanted to drop it and just watch and hope for an indefinite amount of time. In the moment, the idea of months of uncertainty and disappointment seemed more bearable than flat out rejection.
It had been a long, good day, but standing around outside his house that evening with some friends I was mentally preparing for when they would leave and we would be alone. Rehearsing what I would say and imagining how it would go had my stomach in knots. And then it happened. In the dark night sky, while everyone was talking and not paying attention, I saw it. A shooting star. Faithful interaction. I knew then that whatever the answer would be, I could handle it. No matter the outcome, I would be okay. I had the confidence I needed and, later that evening sitting on the couch, I learned to my surprise and delight that I was not alone in my love.
I guess you could say the rest is history. Stud had to leave right away for more training and through the distance our relationship grew. By the time he came home three months later, we were talking of marriage and I didn't want to leave his side for a second. It was within a week of his homecoming that we learned that we would be deployed. His training would start almost immediately. It was during that time that I began to realize how much a part of OUR lives the military would be. The tearful goodbyes, the giddy hellos, getting engaged on leave, planning a wedding during a deployment and living under the cloud of military schedules and regulations.
I still remember first hearing about the Marine Corps. Before that first conversation about the possibility of enlisting it used to be just a vague impression of valor and discipline, the "hardcore" branch. I never would have imagined back then that there would be a picture of my husband from his boot camp graduation sitting on my desk at work, dress blues hanging in our bedroom closet or that I'd be holding down the fort with our two cats as we head into a second deployment a little over a year after our wedding.
I think sometimes it's the things we never pictured for ourselves that fulfill us the most and it's often the struggles that we endure that bring the most joy and growth. Being married to the military has its ups and downs, victories and defeats, but it's all worth it for the love of one Marine.
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