Ohana: Nobody gets left behind, or forgotten.

In this life, this crazy military life, you cannot succeed (forget thrive, you can't even succeed) without the love and support from friends/family. Really, those friends become your family. They understand your struggles. They understand when you're going on day 8 or 15 of a TDY or deployment and are about to lose your fucking mind. They understand when you're irrationally furious at your spouse because they're on day 9 of 12+ hour work days and no days off. They understand the struggle of the single car military family. It is this community of friends that keep you sane. They will have your back through it all. Can't handle life today? Get all the kids in one place and co-parent. Sick? They will bring you food. Going to be late to pick up a kid from school? They've got you covered. Heck, I didn't even bother letting my friend know I would be a minute or two (literally just over a minute) late for preschool pick up and guess what? Her husband (whom I wasn't expecting to see at pick up) waited until I got there to collect their kids and head home himself. The guy might as well be uncle to my children. In our current state culture, that's actually the appropriate the title for our dear friends. It is friends like these that make military life possible. I needed to run 2 towns over after collecting some records the other week. One of my amazing ohana let me leave the babes with her while I ran off to try to beat construction/rush hour traffic.

In our life, we have to create community over and over again. Depending on the branch, that is easier or harder. For us, it's harder. We are seldom in areas with large populations and sometimes we're hated. But on this occasion we're on a large base mixed with all of the other branches; we've been able to make friends with all sorts of people and we have found our family here. I love it here, and that is largely thanks to our amazing military ohana here. Need to go for a run but hubs is on duty? No worries, someone will watch your kids while you get your run in. These are the people that, don't just keep you sane, but become family. In every sense of the word, every fiber of my being that had the meaning of family instilled in me while growing up agrees that these people are family. But outside of our community this love, compassion, and dedication to each other seems very bizarre. Yet to us, this is just life.

In this life, I will drive up on your lawn at just about 0410 and wait for you to climb in. I don't know your last name, you're just a casual friend that is also a runner. And here is where my 2 worlds collide. Ohm you're a runner and you need a ride to the half marathon too!? Climb in! And yes, at 0dark30 I may drive up on the lawn in front of your house. I'll also pull a driving maneuver that gives away that my roots run deep on Los Angeles' freeways. That's right, I pulled off a 4 lane lane change at the split. I had a car of runners, my 2 regular running partners and 1 casual friend that also needed a ride. Our running paces of various times and varying experiences. I have run marathons on one end and on the other my wonderful friend ran her first half!! I'm so proud of her for not only running more of it than she originally planned and finishing, but she also met her time goal!! My casual friend (who after this needs to actually be a friend) has run a handful of them and posted the best time of our group. My other running partner is a fucking rockstar. Shut up. Seriously, stop shaking your head at your screen and accept that you are not nearly as badass as she is. She has run 4 half marathons-all while pregnant and this last one, she is 33 weeks pregnant!! Go get your lazy butts up off the couch and do something, because she is making us all look bad. I am friends with some seriously baddass people. Scoot those 3 aside because that half marathon would never have been run if it weren't for the amazing friend that slept at my house and stayed with my kids while I ran. She had to wake up early with my kids, because they don't sleep in like hers, and deal with all of their craziness. She is a champ!  I got to meet, in person, a friend from FB. We've been in this CG journey together for 2+ years and we just got to meet in person. It was awesome! She is my family. 

All of these things though, they come at a price. And it's steep. Tomorrow one of these amazing people and her beautiful babies will leave our island. There will not be a tearful goodbye at the airport. No. We're not like that. Don't get me wrong. I started crying yesterday and it's hard. I cried today on her couch for a minute. My heart is breaking. They are leaving for family reasons, so I cannot treat this the same way as a PCS. My heart breaks for our kids that have become so close, that I will not get to see them as much, that my running buddy and dear friend is hurting so much. My heart is in fucking pieces right now. I love them as family, and I know we will see each other again (I will go visit no doubt, and we could still be stationed near them).  But still, this is the price we pay. We are forged together through the trials of the military and we will overcome the distance, but the initial heart break is still very real. Tomorrow, she will braid my daughter's hair one last time and our boys will get one last playdate before we walk out of her back gate like every other day; only this time is the last time. Military Ohana is strong, we have to be. 

Motherhood.

It is 0817 as I begin this post. I'm sitting propped up in my bed and I can hear the tv from downstairs which means that my husband has at least woken up long enough to put something on to occupy our kids for a while longer. He is snoozing on a couch, no doubt. How do I know? Because there are not any other sounds in my house. He is NOT the quietest person in the world, even trying to make breakfast he could wake the entire town with his volume. Thus, he is snoozing on the couch. So what am I doing with my time? I opened up Facebook and I read many wonderful "Mother's Day" well wishes, some directed at me and some directed at all mothers. But my heart hurt as I read them and a conversation with my sister played over in my head. You see, I have 2 of the world's best siblings by birth (and 2 of the best siblings by happenstance) and my sister is one of them. She is incredibly strong and has overcome many things in her life which endeavor to make her less, and instead she conquers them. She wasn't much older than my daughter currently is when our parents had me, only 3 years difference, and yet despite having been raised in the same house and with the same parents, we have led quite drastically different lives. I have lived all over this country as an adult and she lives in the same general area where we graduated high school. Lest you think I like to move a lot, I do NOT. I hate moving. I like stability and roots. Back to my point. Just because we have the same origins it does not mean we will have the same outcome. We had drastically different needs growing up. Some met and others we still strive to get met. Here, though, is one area that we have accomplished the same thing in our 30+ years on this earth. We are both mothers. To human children. I have birthed both of my children and that, frankly, is the easy way to motherhood. Despite fertility issues, we have 2 beautiful and completely crazy children. My sister...she took the champion's way to motherhood and followed in the steps of many of our family members.

My big sister is technically my half sister, and this is ultimately only relevant when I speak of the other half. Our parents were married in October of the same year that she was born (at the beginning of the year). Our dad married our mom and Kristina became his first daughter. His brother and sister inlaw gave Kristina a stuffed bear (BooBoo) that very first Christmas, and some 30+ years later she still has it. Our parents had 2 more children, our brother and myself, and then they closed that shopped and raised us three. They never treated us differently and our dad made a point of it; he has 3 children that he raised and cared for. His brother fostered a woman and she is my cousin D. I don't know much about their story or this came to be, but she is family. [oh, I heard my husband stir] My cousin T has been married times. Stop your judgements, not everyone finds marital bliss on the first try and they aren't all his fault: sometimes shit is just broken and it's everyone's fault or maybe nobody's fault. [our daughter just woke up very angry] Back to my cousin. Wife #2 came with 2 boys from a prior marriage and T raised them alongside the child that they had together. Those 2 boys are family to this day and were never treated any different than the rest of the kids in this family. T is with wife #3, and while I've never met her, they are incredibly happy together and a great match by all accounts. I cannot wait to get to meet my new cousin and the wonderful daughters she brought to the family. Let us add this up: T has 1 child from wife #1, 3 boys from #2, and 3 girls from #3= 7 children that to him are entirely his own, of which only 2 are biologically his. I know that these are his kids. Because as a family they are still together. They still love each other. T has a younger brother, N. N's wife is...she is a force to be reckoned with. I don't know where she found the strength to date with a young daughter at home-personally it would terrify me. [text from my mom that my dad went out and got some exercise-go dad!] But Ms. B is a force and when her daughter was...you know I don't actually know how old she was...maybe in the 5th grade Ms. B and her kickass daughter joined our family. N got a much older first child and had to navigate parenthood with the best wingman a parent could ever ask for. Ms. B is kind of my hero. Anyways, they have 2 kids together and just celebrated the oldest of their 3 kids graduated college!! I can promise you that my cousin N was one of the loudest and proudest fathers there that night/day. She is one of his daughters. This is our family, and my sister is one of, clearly, many who have come to parenthood the champion's way.

Kristina has 3 children. She has been an instrumental and constant part of their lives and raising them every day for the last...5ish years (nope, I don't know and it doesn't matter). But this morning, I doubt that she woke up to breakfast in bed, or hand made cards filled with love, or handmade cards filled in with prompts from school teachers, or flowers from their dad [actually, this might happen-I don't know], or any other thing that many mothers will be showered with on this day. [I can currently hear my entire brood in the kitchen, I'm guessing waffles for breakfast] Kristina and their dad are not married yet (that's later this year) but she has been there for them, like every mother has been there for their kids, for nearly half a decade and there is no other title for her than "MOM". My sister laments that she doesn't get these things. There is no day for her, there is no sweet child that she has raised to look into her eyes and say, "I love you MOM". To her kids she is "Kristina". She didn't get teenagers, by the way; she got at least 1 still in diapers, and the oldest is still in junior high (so obviously they were 5 years younger than now when she came into their lives). But to them, she is not mom and she wants to have more kids. She doesn't want to have kids of her own, that expression doesn't exist; she wants more kids with her fiance. People can be rude and callous and demand to know why 3 isn't enough for her. She likes kids and she is a good mom, she can have more kids. And not once in 5 years have I ever heard her say, "I want kids of my own." She has said, "I want more kids with M" and "I want more kids." Nowhere in there is the modifier that they must be her biological children. On some level, I always consider (because I know she does want to experience pregnancy, she's delusional as you can see) her having at least 1 more kid that is hers biologically, but I also know her heart for the many kids in foster care who need families to love them too.

The strength it takes to raise someone else's kids as your own is strength beyond what a parent like myself knows. I came to motherhood the easy way. There were hormones to help me bond with my kids and I am fiercely protective of them. Don't believe me? Ask just about anyone who has stood in the way of my kids getting medical treatment. It doesn't go so well for them. Not every mom who gives birth to her kids will get the beautiful bonding right away, but I think many do. There are other ways to this motherhood gig. Surrogacy is an option and that doesn't necessarily mean any biological connection to that baby. Although, you do get all the sleepless nights and head banging screaming you daydreamed about when you struggled to have kids. There are foster and adoptive moms out there that I know have been raising big beautiful families of kids that were never babies in their arms. This is the champion's way.

There are military spouses out there that raise their kids in a fashion very similar to a commune. We are all mamas to each others kids, of course we get the title of aunties and get to send them back home-but do you think I wouldn't jump in front of a bus for any of my many bonus kids? I expect high school and college graduation tickets. Probably won't happen, but that is the level I love them. Gross with illness and I will snuggle those kids that aren't mine by biology, they are mine by the military. [not waffles, eggs and muffin with...decent coffee, in bed]

All of us are moms, we all deserve to be recognized as such. I got to meet my friend's mom this past week. She didn't raise my friend. She came into the picture somewhere in the teen years and she is mom. She is a wonderful grandma to my niece and nephews. She stepped in. She is mom. But in our society we only glorify the mom that came to it by birth or surrogacy or maybe adoption gets included. We don't include the moms who came to it that filled a hole or who walk alongside the biological mom (as my sister does). These aren't moms that get celebrated in the media. But they fucking should be. They deserve just as much recognition-if not more- than a mom like me. When my husband and I disagree on some parenting topic-we have equal footing on the battlefield that is trying to raise non psychotic killer children. My sister? She is the underdog. She treads a fine line of fighting for her babies and not stepping on anyone's toes-because there are fucking toes to step on. I'd never succeed in her shoes. Ask the people in my life, I don't just step on toes, I crush them. I'm not delicate. But she is winning at this. Her kids love her. They value her. How do I know?? She feels "unappreciated". All moms, how many of you feel appreciated by your kids? (I'll wait for that one mom in the back to come to terms with the reality that she hasn't gotten a thank yet for not strangling her 3 year old who woke her up by bouncing on her yesterday morning and that same 3 yr old decided to ask 80 thousand million questions before she had had her 1st cup of coffee...there we go). The thing is, kids aren't going to appreciate all the stuff we do for them (or don't do to them) until they are much older and/or wiser. I really love and appreciate that my mom has been mainlining caffeine my entire life. It has kept me alive. More than anything, I appreciate my mom's flaws. For 3 reasons: 1) it showed me things I don't want to do as a mother myself. 2) it showed me that mothers are human and fallible. 3) reasons 1&2 let me know that it's okay not to be perfect. [shit my kids are coming up here]

Here's the quick end of this post: women come to this gig called Motherhood in many different ways and we are all mothers. So to all of us, especially my sister:

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!

[0944]