James T...
Yokota Middle School
One day in the spring of my second-grade year when I was riding the bus home from school (the school was off base here) and I was talking to my friend Ryan about Pokemon. My brother Jude was in the front of the bus talking to his friends. The roads were incredibly rocky and bumpy. Occasionally the bus would bounce so hard it would feel like an earthquake. Eventually the bus arrived at the bus stop which was in my front yard. I was still engrossed in my conversation with Ryan about Blastoise and was distracted when the bus driver called back.
“James isn’t that your dad?”
The bus driver was a middle-aged lady with a ponytail, and she was pretty good friends with all the students and their parents, which is how she knew my dad. I looked out the window and I saw that my dad was indeed back. He had been deployed to Pakistan for a year and had been sorely missed by the rest of the family. To me, a seven-year-old, a year seemed like an eternity, so to me my dad was an animal I’d seen in a tv show. I knew he existed, but I never saw him in person. My first emotions weren’t surprise or excitement like you would expect but confusion. I ran off the bus and gave him a hug because it was routine for me to give my parents a hug when I got off the bus. However, as soon as he finished hugging me, I blurted out.
“You aren’t meant to be here.” My mom, who had also been there to pick me and my brother up, burst out laughing because she had talked to my uncle who predicted those would be my first words to my father upon his early return. Most children don’t have parents deploy so they never get to experience the happiness and gratitude of when a parent returns.