DO YOUR CHRISTMAS SHOPPING AND GIVE BACK TO VETERANS!!!
For every one of my books purchased through Amazon, or myself, during the month of November,
$1.00 will be donated to THE BOB WOODRUFF FOUNDATION
and $1.00 will be donated to OPERATION MEND
THE OTHER SIDE OF WAR–PAPERBACK ONLY
A MOTHER’S SIDE OF WAR–PAPERBACK OR HARDCOVER
Contact me by email- alwaysamarinemom@yahoo.com or text-(405)818-7490
THE OTHER SIDE OF WAR and A MOTHER’S SIDE OF WAR are the same book, but under different titles. I decided to offer the book under this other title in order to raise awareness that this is a book about healing after war. It doesn’t speak only to mothers. It is a story that warriors, spouses, and older children can relate too. Those from all walks of life will relate to this family that has been affected by war. The warriors are not the only ones who have been injured and must find their own place of healing. Families, friends and communities have been forever changed by those injured while serving.
This true story was written with the intent to help those who are hurting. As well as to educate those who don’t have a military connection, and have no idea about the hardships that our heroes and their families are going through on a daily basis.
I have released both titles in paperback at cost, $5.00 plus shipping, if purchased through me at alwaysamarinemom@yahoo.com.
There are several organizations who will be giving the books out at Christmas, retreats, and adding them to gift bags at fund raisers and year end meetings. Others are ordering just for themselves.
Please consider gifting this book to those you know who may need a look into the world of our wounded, and the remarkable, heroic, efforts of people who are eager to help. The message is “You are not alone,” to those who are in the midst of their own post war lives.
Please spread the word.
Exert from The Other Side of War pg. 16. (It was 24 hours after Aaron was injured in Iraq. He is in Germany, where they are stabilizing him to be transported to Brooke Army Medical Center.)
It was Thursday evening, and I was sitting on our back patio, thinking, crying, hoping, and conversing with the night wind. Only a few months earlier, my three children’s voices had filled the night air, with the joking around and laughter only the young seem to express so unflinchingly. I wondered about Aaron’s medical needs and if he was on a respirator, or if he did not need one. Was he aware of what was going on around him, or was he kept unconscious? Did he know how much I loved him and how it was tearing me up inside, not being with him?
As the early morning sun slowly began to touch the clear, peaceful sky, all I could think of was that Aaron’s eyes mimicked that same cool blue color. I sat there with the phone held tightly in my hand, waiting anxiously for the next call, even though I knew I would not hear anything until he was ready to be transported from Germany to San Antonio.
The Lord had already assured me He would not take Aaron’s life, so the thought of getting that phone call wasn’t even in me…
Today I begin a new decade of life, and I’ve thought about where I have been, and where I choose to go.
I choose to be the kind of family member that all in my family can be proud to have stand beside them.
I choose to be the kind of friend that I would want for myself.
I choose to live by choice, not by chance.
To make changes, not excuses.
To be motivated, not manipulated.
To be useful, not used.
To excel, not compete.
I choose to listen to my inner voice, my soul, not the random opinions of others.
I choose to follow my Lord, where ever He leads.
My choices are mine, just as your choices are yours…
Choose well, life doesn’t give you “do-overs”…but you can choose again, tomorrow.
The early morning darkness was beginning to show the promise of another crisp autumn morning. Through the window I watched the orange glow of the slowly rising sun sitting just below the hills in the distance, as I took another sip of my honey sweetened tea.
Instead of enjoying this peaceful time of the early morning dawn, I sit at my desk—remembering—writing another article on the question I am most often asked.
What is it like to answer a phone call informing you that your child has been injured in battle? I must have answered that question in many different ways, over the past 9 years. But, the words were never even close to the reality of that unbearable moment—that moment when time stops—that moment when you know that nothing will ever be the same again.
I remember hearing words that made absolutely no sense. They were nothing more than a string of garbled utterances, carried through the air from a phone so far away. They entered my world without hesitation, as my hand gripped tighter and tighter around my phone. The string of words that seemed to be read from a sheet of paper, so formally, came crashing into my world trying to eliminate hope. I suspected they must be read, because of the difficulty the person on the other end of this conversation is having in just saying such things.
When the call ended, the words spoken began to take on their combined meaning. They ran through my mind while I felt as though my heart was being ripped from my chest, and I screamed with all that I am, “No!”
But the reality of those words remained, and I had to plan…
How do you plan for this “thing” you prayed would never reach your door?
You don’t—you can’t…
You simple respond, one small step at a time, as the details and realities are slowly set before you.
First the tears flow—for the life that was my child’s future, the life that has been forever changed, and then for my life as well. How selfish I felt at that moment, wondering what would be required of me. “How will I cope?” I thought, as I started that journey on a path that held only uncertainties.
The perfect child that I had handed to another was being returned damaged, but this was still my child. I had to reach deep inside my own emotions, and present a world of hope and healing that I wasn’t at all certain would exist longer than the light of one more day.
One moment, one hour, and one day at a time, I tried to do all I could to bring life back to some kind of normalcy. Normalcy—what a strange word—Its definition had been so completely changed by that single phone call. Then it had to be redefined, and its goals redirected. My son’s life, nor mine, would ever be the same, and that could be a good thing or a bad one. That was a choice we both had to make. A choice that must be made every single day for the rest of our lives.
We learned to take each day as it came, and not to try and figure out all the answers at once. The questions would change. And those answers that we were finding some small bit of comfort in, would no longer apply. Each new day would start with its own beginnings, and a different set of goals—yet to be defined.
Writing to Heal 