I miss Daddy

For the record, it has been just over 4 years since Brian returned from his last 8-month deployment.
For the record, it has been just shy of 12 months since his last TDY - that was a 2 week trip.
For the record, the last "long" TDYs Brian has had while stationed up here in Alaska have been in 2012.  He was gone in total for approximately 16 weeks (4 months).

For us, that is a wonderful thing.  Having Daddy home is nothing short of heavenly.  Seriously. But for a man who has a distinguished military career and has spent the majority of his Air Force time away from home coupled with someone who loves his wife and 3 young children, I imagine that this might be a mixed blessing... bittersweet in a sense.  Brian loves what he does (especially when he was an Air Bourne RED HORSE troop) and being on the home-front doesn't quite have the same satisfaction of work accomplishment that is does when your off 1/2 way around the world with a critical mission at hand. 

In comparison to the last decade, Brian has hardly gone anywhere for any great amount of time since our time began up here.  What a staunch difference it has been.  For us, deployments & long TDYs were a vicious cycle... and one that Thomas & Abby were all too familiar with, even as young children.

Fast forward to this past weekend.

Brian and some of his buddies headed down to Seward for a weekend of fishing.  He left Friday afternoon and returned Sunday around lunchtime.  Less than 2 full days away.  From the moment Marilyn realized that Daddy was out of town and would not be home to sleep, she whined and cried that she missed her Daddy.  At first, I thought it was just her caught up in the moment of missing him because he wasn't doing things with us.  But through the evening, throughout Saturday and into the first part of Sunday, all she could do was plead for Daddy to come home because she missed him soooo very much.

Don't get me wrong, Thomas and Abby missed him too and showered him with hugs and kisses when he walked through the door, but it was so plain to see that Marilyn has not experienced, nor is used to, her Daddy being gone.  She has not had him miss out on the milestones that happened with Thomas & Abby.  In her short 3 years, she has had him home almost all of her life.

And for that, I'm so grateful that Brian is retiring and will be home permanently and she won't have to miss her Daddy like she did this past weekend.