Military Mama: Part II … State of Perpetual Motion

By Jade Stone, wife to National Guardsman Jay

Well, if you are reading this you have either come back for more or have stumbled in and are new to the story so here’s a quick re-cap: The previous entry was an account of my humble entry into this world in Ft Bragg, N.C., shortly after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. The war took my father’s soul and replaced it with a capsule of dark memories and raging night terrors that would haunt him for the rest of his life. This would soon lead to the separation and divorce of my parents when I was about 2.

My mom started a new life in Springfield, Mo., with my beloved grandparents, and a surprise pregnancy which occurred towards the end of my parents’ relationship. So, in the famous words of Paul Harvey “and now, the rest of the story…”

As a 2-year-old, there are few things that really mattered in the world to me. 1) That I had my grandma wrapped around my finger; 2) the world revolved around me, and 3) that I was my mom’s pride and joy to dote on whenever possible.

Mom worked tirelessly at a fast food restaurant by the name of “Mac donals”, as I so fondly pronounced it, from mid afternoon to late evenings. She would keep me all day, and then drop me off at Grandma’s to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening.  Grandma would entertain me until bedtime, and then take me to that little white house for the evening bedtime ritual, put me to bed and wait there patiently until mom got home around 11.

You see, Grandma was also a very hard worker. She would then go home and sleep until 5, at which time she would get up and go to a local elementary school where she slaved in the kitchen as one of the last in a dying generation of school cooks who actually cooked everything from scratch. At times it seemed that she would pull into the driveway and mom would pull out.  While it may seem as though I was juggled around a bit, I personally never felt the sting of having an overworked, underpaid mom who, unbeknownst to me was not only struggling to keep us afloat but was also battling a broken heart and the rigors of morning sickness and all the ups and downs that go with pregnancy.

And then one day, “he” came along. Mom leaves for a couple of days and comes back with this screaming thing wrapped in a blanket. It seemed to suck the attention right out of any room and suddenly, no one came to see me anymore. All the attention I had come to adore was now redirected to that crying, fussy wad of blankets in the other room.

I no longer greeted people at the door but rather silently motioned them in and pointed to the other room because I quickly learned they were obviously not here to see me. That goofy crying ball of diapers got all the fancy ribbon wrapped presents and I got a pat on the head in passing. I wasn’t sure what this was about but I did know one thing, I did not like it! Needless to say, I had some adjusting to do!

Meanwhile, remember the young soldier I mentioned last time named Lynn? Well, as it turns out, he and mom had become close friends through the divorce process and when mom left North Carolina, they began corresponding by mail on a regular basis. Little did I know that they had become the best of friends, bound by common experiences. In fact, just before my little brother was born, Lynn was shipped to Belgium where he had been for almost a year when he decided he did not want to do this alone and the woman of two small children that he had grown to care very much for in the states needed help.

So, in January of 1978 he called mom and told her he wanted to bring her to Belgium and offered to care for her and her two small children in exchange for her companionship. Now Mom, being a single mother of two struggling to make it on small wages, faced what seemed like a no brainer.  This union would provide all of us with a nicer home then we had ever known, complete medical coverage, and a trip around a world compliments of the United States Army. What decision was there to make?

When a person finds herself in a situation such as mom’s, the decision is no longer based on ‘The man of ones’ dreams, or Love, but rather, what is best for the children involved and for two small children, much as it is today, insurance and security were commodities that we couldn’t afford to lose.

So, Lynn came home from Belgium on R&R (rest and recuperation) in February of 1978, they eloped to a small town in Miami, OK, to be married on February 9th  during a nasty blizzard, and by the 15th, we were loaded up and whisked away on the biggest airplane I had ever seen to a foreign land where everyone spoke a very strange, yet beautiful language. (That’s us in the picture above on our way to Belgium.)

What could God possibly have in store for us next ….

To read previous installments of Military Mama, including Part I of this story, click here.