Ryan and Christy's Place

I can't stop touching his face. Or pressing my face into the nape of his neck, where the smell of his shampoo mixes with aftershave or cologne or whatever he uses that makes his smell his.

Last night I had a dream that he was only on leave; that he had to go back in a month. I woke up, groggy from sleep and twisted around in the bed to face him. What's going on? Does he have to go back? It took a minute, but my head cleared.

No. He's home.

Last Friday, he came back. I stood with hundreds of soldiers' family and friends at his National Guard armory in Tennessee, waiting on a bus that carried Ryan and about 50 other soldiers. We waited. We clutched flags and signs. Children ran around, yellow balloons bobbing above their heads, writing messages in sidewalk chalk on the pavement.

Cell phones rang sporadically. It was soldiers on the bus, phoning their loved ones to give them a play-by-play of where they were. Voices rang out across the lawn. "They've hit the county line!" "They're on Interstate 81!" "They're on Main Street!" Each shout brought another chill of excitement, a roar of screaming and cheering.

And then, we heard them. We heard sirens, because at least 10 Highway Patrol cars and local police cars led them. We heard motorcycles, because hundreds of members of a veterans association led the bus on their bikes. The cop cars drove up the hill to the armory; then the motorcycles came. Then, we saw them. A bus, all lit up from the inside, a sea of men in camo standing up, waving their hats, home. People started crying. I was one of them.

I saw him on the bus as it passed me in the crowd. He didn't see me, but I saw his face. Looking out, expectant. The sweet face of a man coming home to his family, at last, looking and hoping to catch a glimpse of them.

When the bus parked, I ran to it. I pushed past men, women, children. When I reached the bus door, he was stepping off. He turned and saw me, and his face lit up.

The rest is almost a blur. Hugging, kissing, laughing, crying. Reunions are such sweet things, especially after a deployment. Families reuniting, soldiers laughing and chatting with each other, telling inside jokes.

I couldn't stop touching his face. He laughed at me that night, because I kept asking him, "Are you real?"

"Yes, honey," he'd say. "I'm real."

I feel real again, too.

-- Christy