Today...April 12 2008

I'm taking a break from the "old farmhouse" portion of this site for just a bit......I just checked my email and found I had a couple of messages from my brother in law Darrin....

Darrin is my hero........He's married to my little sister, Amy and is the father of Ava and the soon to be born Olivia...and he's in Afghanistan as I write this. I didn't know when I first met him that he would become my hero....other then the fact that he was going to marry my sister and he was the first guy she'd dated in a long time that I totally approved of (as if that mattered!)

Darrin served in the first Gulf War under the first President Bush...after serving there, he was discharged and went back to college and back to his music.....his band had quite some degree of success before he met and became engaged to Amy and decided he'd become a fireman/paremedic instead.... When he chose that career, I knew he had the makings of a hero in him.....and I worried a bit when right after September 11th 2001, he went into the reserves. I knew that if he hadn't had a wedding planned for October 20th, he might have gone the full route....I remember asking him if his reserve unit would ever be called up for service in Iraq once that war began...and he assured me that their equipment was too outdated for that...he'd be here to protect the home front. His service in the reserves took him to various countries to do drug patrol while he continued to study to become a paramedic....

When Hurricane Katrina swept through New Orleans, Darrin was activated and in New Orleans within 12 hours of the levies breaking....he would spend three weeks doing rooftop rescue from the helicopters that flew continuously over the city. My guts twisted and turned as I read and heard that the US Government failed to act soon enough in the aftermath of that storm because I knew that Darrin and his fellow service men and women were there waiting to be allowed into the city to do their jobs (but that's a story that can wait for another time)......when he came home, he was so affected by what he had seen and witnessed during those weeks of selfless effort, that he refused an interview by the local news station....and I knew he was a hero....in every sense of the word.

But back in September of 2007, David and I were talking about what our soldiers were made of....and wondering if we would have had the "right stuff" to ever serve our country in the military...it is funny because I remember saying to David that "Darrin is that kind of hero".....and a day or two later, we get the email from Amy and Darrin saying that he'd been asked to re-up and become active military for placement in a special unit being called up....he'd been personally recommended.

We weren't surprised that after he and Amy talked about it he agreed to do it....and Amy became my hero too.....I don't know that I could have supported David if he'd been asked to do this when I was the mother of a 3 year old.....I would hope so....but I just don't know.

Only a few weeks later, Amy and Darrin discovered they were having another child.....and realized that Darrin would be gone for almost the entire pregnancy and for the birth and for the first 5 months of that new baby's life...... Darrin's been in Afghanistan now since January....and Amy is due to have baby Olivia any day now....

So, I'd like to just take a minute to think about all the heroes fighting this war for us.....and all the babies being born while their dads are gone and all the mom's bravely going into labor and delivery and into single parenting.....and all the sons and daughters ......well, every single hero there...from whatever country...fighting for freedom and for us....some of us just have it in us to be heroes.......

Thank you.....to all the heroes!