Mom. Wife. Military Life.

In April, purple doesn’t just represent the beautiful blooms starting to appear as winter says its final goodbyes. April represents “The Month of the Military Child”, as if the month is enough to show our appreciation for their unsolicited participation in an event they never even asked for.

Military children are unique in that they learn to exist and blend in, and then, in the moments when you expect any normal person to react due to circumstance or situation, they adapt. I find myself still taking notes on how my children handle this lifestyle. Raising kids is already, I would say, the hardest thing I have ever done. But being the overachiever, type-A person I am, I had to add the spice of being married to a man who decided to commit his life not only to me, but to his country. People always say, “You know what you signed up for”, but just like you had no idea how your life was going to play out, no matter how well you planned it, neither did I, and raising kids in this world adds an extra layer. A layer that can be incredibly humbling, beautiful, scary, lonely… oh so lonely, fun, confusing, liberating, bold, and so, so many other feelings.

A word they hear a lot is resilient

Resilience is so tricky for military children. Resilience, by definition, means to withstand or recover quickly from difficulties or toughness. It can also be used in the sense of springing back or elasticity. The difference with something that has elasticity is that it can usually bend without breaking; human beings are made to bend, but the body and soul can also break. No matter how strong these beautiful babies are, they are surrounded by the hymns of their strength and the praise of the famous words “I don’t know how you do it”. Well, they don’t either. They have never had a choice. They have had to do things that some adults I know have never experienced. When they are young and their parent is gone on deployment, there are the bedtime tears and “I miss daddy (or momma, military mommas are missed also)”. When they get a little older it becomes fear of new classrooms and friendships and wondering who they will sit with at lunch and play with at recess, and when they become teenagers it becomes the truth and experience of the pain of leaving. When a parent leaves they know it’s not just a simple trip, it’s war they are going to. Leaving friendships that feel like they will last a lifetime. Leaving a piece of themselves everywhere they go.

Resilience is a word that should be a filler for these exceptional human beings.

To watch them love, knowing that there is always a change on the horizon, is more than resilience.

To watch them constantly step into the “new” of every school, base, sports team, friendships, relationships, and do it scared, is more than resilience.

To watch them say goodbye to their parent over and over again, always knowing the undertone of what that goodbye means, is more than resilience.

To have them do it all, when they never asked for this life, is more than resilience.

The growth, heartbreak, and strength aren’t the only things that they experience, though; they also get the stuff that is really, really hard to explain to civilians. Yup, they would call you a civilian because that is something they are also given, a bunch of military lingo from the day they step into this world.

So now let me tell you about the stuff behind the gates that they experience.

These kids get to experience childhood. Barefoot running through the neighborhood, playing at the park, eating snacks, making lemonade stands, catching bugs, and just getting to be kids. We all know who belongs to whom, and the neighborhood is the mother. Giggling voices come bellowing down hallways, familiar (and unfamiliar faces) plop down at the dinner table, and the door is always open. New friends are made, and a new family is formed, because both the kids and the parents realize that we are often all we’ve got. Almost never is family in the same city, so for these babies, it takes a community to raise them.

The world truly is their playground. I can’t think of another life where we would be able to afford to show our children the world in the ways they have experienced it. The black sand beaches of Bali, Soba in Japan, Dumplings in Taiwan, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the mountains in New Zealand, and virgin pina coladas on the beach in Hawaii, and that’s without all of the other fun travel in between. When these babies travel like this, what you don’t see in the tourist photos posted on social media is the cultures they’re exposed to. When we strolled through an old market in Japan, a kind older gentleman who didn’t speak a lick of English sat playing the shamisen, smiling and singing while all our kids danced around. Or, on the darker side of things, not being allowed into a restaurant when we ventured off the beaten path in a country that was not our own. With travel comes culture. With culture comes curiosity. With curiosity comes education. With education, empathy is born. Military children are the most empathetic humans you will ever meet.

These kids know how it feels to be the odd man out. To be scared. To be alone. Which also means they know how to notice it in others and create a place of peace for those who don’t have it. My beautiful babies have brought home some of the sweetest kids, who needed a little extra love, and we were happy to provide that safe place for them. I trust these kids’ instincts because with the moves, the changes, and the constant adaptations, they notice energy, and I notice them. It’s a team effort.

So to all our military babies, even you crusty older ones who don’t want to hear this right now…

You are remarkable. Our adult brains can’t even rationalize the way you live your life. You, our sweet babies, are often the light in the darkness for us. This world of military life can swallow us whole, yet your perspective, strength, and unsolicited bravery remind us to get ourselves together and be just as brave. There are times when I wanted to throw my hands in the air and say, “I’m done, I can’t do this life anymore”, and without ever even sharing that with you, you never cease to amaze me with how every hard situation you have had to face, you not only get through it, you excel. My admiration for you is unmatched. I pray for the day when I don’t have to call you resilient anymore, because you deserve more than that. You are our life vests in a hurricane. The reflection of our spouses we get to wake up to every day, when they are often working on the other side of the world. You are our joy, our pride, and there is no word for how important you are in this world in your lifetime.

So here are your flowers, our sweet military babies.