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Wow…did I ever pick the wrong day to travel back home!  The worst win­ter storm of the sea­son.  I fig­ured we would be safe trav­el­ing through Phoenix, but those peo­ple do NOT know how to han­dle rain! It was rain­ing for the first time in 6 months and it was  down­pour. You would think the world was end­ing!  I guess that’s desert liv­ing for you.

We ended up get­ting stranded in Phoenix (No thanks to US Air­way and Alle­gan­tAir…! Ahem.) and hav­ing to buy new tick­ets through Amer­i­can Air­lines into Spring­field the next day.  We got to Dal­las but almost got stranded there!  Noth­ing will bring out the Mam­aBear faster than when the air­lines (and weather) are keep­ing you from your babies!  It’s amaz­ing how quick, your sur­vival skills try to kick in when you “feel” like someone/thing is keep­ing you from your kids.  It’s truly mental!

Then I looked over at the guy next to me. He was figet­ing like all get out. He saw that I noticed him and sheep­ishly said, “I’m on leave and don’t want to miss one sec­ond of it with my family.”

Wow.

I felt stupid.

Here was this mil­i­tary guy who was on leave until the end of the month, then he was going back to the front line, Afgan­istan this time.

I had just seen my kids 4 days earlier…he hadn’t.
I have been there for every one of my kids’ birthdays…he hasn’t.
I have cel­e­brated almost every hol­i­day with my kids…he hasn’t.
I’ve talked to my chil­dren, every sin­gle day of their lives…he hasn’t.

That hit me like a brick.

I don’t know if he ever made it home. I know that that par­tic­u­lar flight was can­celled and he didn’t switch to the same flight we did. There was one more flight to Spring­field later in the day. I sure hope he made that one.

I prayed for him and his fam­ily. I also thanked the good Lord for bless­ing me with the type of sit­u­a­tion where I have my hus­band and chil­dren by my side every day.

It’s the lit­tle things that are really so huge.