American Wife (33 page)

Yet I was disappointed when he reenlisted. Was I disappointed with God, or Chris?

Had my prayers even been heard?

If it was God's plan that he reenlist, I should have been at peace with it. Yet I can't say that I was.

Right after he made his decision, I took a walk with a friend whose faith ran very deep. She knew the Bible much better than I did, and was far more active in the church. I cried to her.

“I have to believe this is the best thing for our family,” I told her. “But I don't know how it can be. I'm really struggling to accept it.”

“It's okay to be angry with God,” she told me.

That caught me short. “I—I don't think we're supposed to be.”

“Why not?”

“Well . . . Jesus was never mad at God, and—”

“That's wrong,” she said. “Don't you remember in the temple with the money changers? Or in the garden before he was crucified, his doubts? Or on the cross? It's okay to have those feelings.”

We talked some more.

“I do believe that if Chris dies,” I said finally, “God must be saying it's still okay for our family, even if I don't know how.”

She teared up. “I'm in awe,” she confessed. “I don't know if I could say that.”

Now, years later and no longer a stranger to death or grief, the doubts I expressed were stronger—and so was my anger, though not with God or Chris.

I knew accepting God means accepting that He has a plan. But did that mean I must trust, somehow, in that plan?

Even if I hated it?

As a parent, we often have to make difficult decisions. We have to say no to our kids, even when it disappoints them. We tell them they have to do certain things for their own good, regardless of whether they like it. I think God is like that, in a way: making certain things happen for our eternal good. Even the suffering on earth, which will somehow be redeemed in heaven.

Does He say:
Yes, you have to suffer, but you're going to be okay. I have your best interests at heart. And you have something to learn.

At my darkest times, I struggled to believe this. I tried to remember that, even when things don't go the way I'd hoped, He's still there. And that maybe we need great disappointment to appreciate the good, and to better appreciate the meaning of God in our lives. I've come to realize that part of faith is opening yourself up to free will and knowing God will bring beauty, even in the midst of evil.

It's one thing to say all this. To believe it every day—to live it and not despair—that is a struggle.

Driving my daughter to a friend's house one evening, she asked me about God.

“Why doesn't God stop bad things from happening?”

I glanced back at her in the seat. Her eyes were big, her expression pensive.

“I'm sure he could, but that would break his promise to us,” I said, working the answer out. “Because he promised to give us free will, and that means that we are free to do bad things as well as good.”

“But other people?”

“Other people, too. All people have free will.” I worked to explain it, not just to her but to myself. “God promised not to leave us alone,” I said, coming back to an idea that has often comforted me. “It doesn't mean we'll always be happy. But He will always support us.”

Angel was thinking about her father and his death. I wondered if she was going to cry.

“It's okay to cry,” I told her.

“I'm not going to cry,” she said. “I have a lot of questions about God. But I can't think about them now.”

“You can always ask.”

“I know.”

“Are you angry with God?”

“No. He didn't do this to us.”

“It's okay to be mad at God,” I admitted finally—to myself. “He can handle it.”

FAKING IT

At different points over the past two years I've lost complete track of time. I don't mean the hours—that, too, but I'm sure we all have those days where we think it's ten in the morning only to discover it's really four in the afternoon. I'm talking bulk. I've found whole months flying by without my really noticing—I took the garbage out one night and stopped myself in the driveway, wondering why it was so darn hot.

Of course it's hot, I realized.
It's June!

My therapist pointed out that losing track of time is common for people who have gone through traumas. And losing your husband certainly is a trauma.

Chris's death is a time marker when I think back; I tend to date everything from then, before and after. I have trouble placing dates to things that happened since he died; I have to work hard to pinpoint them.

Sometimes, surviving has been mostly a matter of faking it.

One afternoon we went to a friend's house. It was a bit rainy, but not so bad that the kids couldn't play outside. At some point, they started having a mud fight.

Their faces were pictures of sheer delight. Lost completely in the moment, they giggled and laughed and slid all over the place.

I forced myself to laugh, too. They were having so much fun that it would have been a crime not to. Yet inside I was feeling horribly oppressed, by the court cases and trials as well as Chris's absence.

I think we all do this to some degree. Business travelers, for instance, can't let the fact of a long jet flight hurt their presentation. A salesman won't let the fight he just had with his wife prevent him from making a new sale. Inspirational ministers talk about the glory of God rather than the toe they stubbed on the way up to the pulpit.

I knew I had to be happy for the kids. If I couldn't be genuinely happy, then I at least owed it to them to be fake happy.

Could they tell the difference?

PATRIOT TOUR

My interest in trying more public speaking received a boost when Marcus Luttrell and his wife Melanie invited me to join the Patriot Tour.

Marcus had thought up the idea of a tour with Chris and Chad Fleming, an army veteran who lost his leg in the War on Terror. The idea was to have a small group of veterans travel around the country, telling people about their sacrifices and encouraging them to be patriots themselves. Rock bands tour; why not patriots?

My own story wasn't much. Instead, I focused on Chris and the meaning of small gestures. I talked about how kindness can have a ripple effect. I did my best to do what Chris would have done, highlighting others. The more I talked, the more comfortable I felt, and the more confident that I could combine it with the foundation and make a living doing it.

In a lot of ways, Marcus was a trailblazer for Chris and me. I've watched him slowly heal, physically and emotionally, as time has gone on. I've also seen how strange things can get for a public person. They happened to him before they happened to Chris, and while there's nothing that can truly prepare you for the windstorm that is fame, at least we were able to glimpse a little bit of the craziness before it actually hit.

Marcus is a wonderful, complicated person with a warm heart and, occasionally, a gruff exterior. His wife Melanie is the perfect balance. In his speeches, Marcus gives her full credit for saving his life as he recovered from his wounds, and she surely deserves it.

One thing I learned from watching Marcus on tour was how important a tight group of very trusted friends can be. He still has close relationships with people he knew growing up. That's a real luxury. Not having to explain yourself to your friends, being accepted for who you are, not being judged by media images—those are all difficult once fame hits.

Even before.

Being on the tour for a few weeks was like traveling with an extended family. Not only are Marcus, Chad, and people like David Goggins, Billy Wagasy, and Pete Scobell inspiring speakers and performers, but in “real” life, they're inspirational as well. They're kind men and warriors at the same time, not only willing to do anything for you, but capable of pulling it off. And the idea of what they're doing—sharing themselves with others, talking about veterans' experiences, inspiring people with real-life stories about perseverance and overcoming hardships—is so much of what I want to do that joining the tour felt like being home.

While we were traveling one day, Chad took out his phone and showed me a picture.

“Look at what we got!” he exclaimed proudly.

His two-and-a-half-year-old daughter stood in a ballerina dress holding a tiny little animal.

A pig, actually.

A pig?

Her name was Miss Sprinkles. It was the cutest thing I've ever seen.

“Is that real?” I asked.

“Sure,” said Chad. “My wife's mom bred them. There are more. I'm sure she'd give you one.”

“Well . . .”

“They're miniatures. They only grow to be twenty pounds. They potty-train. They are so easy.”

“Potty-train?”

Long story short—I ended up getting one for Angel. I suggested we name her Hammy Wynette. Angel picked Roxie instead.

When she's bad, it's Baby Bacon.

People tell you that pigs are the fourth-smartest mammal, that they're affectionate and easy to live with. But what they don't say is that they squeal as loud as a freight train when they are little.

What do you do when life isn't crazy enough? Get a pig!

ENERGIZING

I was visiting Marcus and his wife when a friend asked if she could talk to me alone. Teresa was the spouse of a Team member who'd served with Chris. We hadn't spent a lot of time together, but we'd always had a connection.

“I have something I want to give you,” she said. “I don't know if it's going to seem corny to you or what, but I kind of want to do it for me.”

She pressed a medal into my hand. I looked at it—it was the medal she'd received for completing the Boston Marathon.

“You and Chris kept me going,” she explained. “It was almost eerie how, when my legs were tired and I wanted to quit, Randy Travis's song came on the iPod. It was the one he played at the memorial. My iPod was on random shuffle but it was always at just the right moment. I would hear that song and it would spur me on.”

Maybe Chris was somehow behind that. People have told me of other inspirational incidents; each one, from simple to grand, has touched me with its beauty.

The kids helped keep me together as well. One day they came in from playing after dinner, and I told them I was just completely exhausted by work and everything else. I said I'd take a shower as soon as I finished up; then we'd read and get ready for bed.

They warmed up some towels in the dryer while I was showering and had them waiting for me when I was done. They made some hot coffee—not really understanding that coffee before bed isn't the best strategy. But it was just the way I like it, and waiting on the bed stand. They turned down the bedcovers and even fluffed my pillows.

Most of the time, their gifts are unintentional.

Angel recently decided that, since the Tooth Fairy is so nice, someone should be nice to her. My daughter wrote a little note and left it under her pillow with some coins and her tooth.

Right?

The Tooth Fairy was very taken with that, and wrote a note back.

“I'm not allowed to take money from the children I visit,” she wrote. “But I was so grateful. Thank you.' ”

Then there was the time the kids were rummaging through one of Chris's closets and discovered the Christmas Elf.

Now everyone knows that the Christmas Elf
only
appears on Christmas Eve. He stays for a short while as part of holiday cheer, then magically disappears for the rest of the year.

“What was he doing here!” they said, very concerned, as they brought the little elf to me. “And in Daddy's closet!”

I called on the special brain cells parents get when they give birth. “He must have missed Daddy so much that he got special permission to come down and hang out in his stuff. I wonder how long he'll be with us?”

Just until I could find another hiding place, of course.

What? Evidence that Santa Claus doesn't exist, you say?

Keep it to yourself. In this house, we believe.

This reminds me of a funny Chris story.

Back when we lived in California, Easter was coming up and Chris was home with the kids. I forget exactly what the children did, but they got out of line and Chris decided rather than disciplining them, he'd use a little daddy logic on them.

Daddy logic, as expressed by a SEAL sniper.

“I'll tell you, you better behave,” he said, “or I'll keep the Easter Bunny from coming.”

“How?” one of them wondered.

Daddy logic met kid logic and raised the ante through the roof.

“I'll sit on the stoop and I'll shoot him when he comes,” said Chris. Somehow he kept a straight face. “You'll ruin it for everyone, not just yourselves.”

We had great behavior for weeks.

It's different living with a sniper as a dad.

Then there are other stories, touching ones, that don't belong to me.

The other day a friend related a story he'd heard from one of Chris's old schoolmates. Back in high school, a student who didn't particularly know Chris had found the only open seat at the “cool” lunch table.

“What are you doing?” said one of the kids. “You can't sit here.”

“Uh—”

Chris walked up and sat down. “Have a seat,” he told the young man.

He did. And no one bothered him at school the rest of the year.

I've talked to people who felt very strongly that Chris has done things for them since he died. The stories move me, even though I don't really know what to think about them.

I guess if you think of how Chris acted as protector during his life, and how he wanted the people he loved to be happy, it makes sense that he might spend some of his energy in the afterlife to keep doing that. I could easily see him talking God into letting him come back from time to time to take care of things down here.