Captain Drew Jensen 79-07 | Photo from Army of Dude.
Today, while rocking Sully to sleep, I prayed I would become more fully mother; that I would seize the next few years of early childhood and adolescence and joyfully wrap myself in the painfully perpetual tasks of mothering: sorting laundry, washing laundry, drying laundry, folding laundry, putting laundry away. I know this time is going to pass. I know it because of that mother I spoke to on the phone when I was working as the spokesperson for the airport. She was a Blue Star mom and had already lost one son in Iraq and was trying to get through the deployment of another. I’m sure at one point during her journey of motherhood she was saturated in piles of dirty laundry and the mindless task of wiping little-boy pee off the toilet.
On any given day, Sully will wait until the last possible second to pee, and then run wild through the house toward the bathroom holding his pee-pee. There is quite possibly nothing in this world more astonishing and amusing to a 41-year-old woman than seeing a three-year-old boy running in tighty-whiteys. I had no idea they made butts that small. As he runs, I shout a series of phrases that for nearly 38 years were no part of my vernacular.
“Aim your pee-pee into the toilet! Keep your eye on the stream! Don’t forget to shake it off!”
“OK,” he sings.Sully is my peacemaker. He’s always up. He appears each evening bearing gifts for everyone – his favorite blanket, a teddy bear. He calls this “a birthday party.” If someone raises their voice in frustration or anger he says, “Don’t shout. This is our family.” That is what I always tell him when he and his siblings have a tussle.
Sully hates to take naps. He kicks and screams, but eventually surrenders. I love holding his warm body as he rests in my arms.
Occasionally, like today, he farts while I rock him.
“Did you hear that?” he asks.
I pretend I did not.
“My body is making noises,” he says.
Once he is asleep, I rock him for a few minutes longer. Hard as I try to avoid torturing myself, I remind myself that he is going to be all grown up one day. Thinking of that Blue Star mother I pray, “Please God, don’t ever let this boy see combat.” Then I pick Sully up and I put him in bed and I stroke his cherubic face, dirty with crumbs and bearing a trace of dried mucous above his lip.
“You don’t wipe your children’s faces often enough,” my inner critic judges. “Good mothers always have children with clean faces.”
I lean way down into Sully’s crib and whisper, “I love you.” He gives me my Friday miracle: “I love you,” he says, his eyes closed, his voice below a whisper.
Why must boys go off to war?
I walk out of his room astonished that any mother anywhere would ever have to bury her son. I hope all the sons – and daughters – will come home from Iraq soon.
On Veteran’s Day, on Army of Dude wrote:
“…My entire being is seared by the tragedy and triumph of war, an invisible mark I wear at every waking moment. My life will be spent trying to sort out what happened out there in the desert, but today is a reflection on the men I served with, both living and dead. It’s to pay respect to the uniform that millions of Americans have worn and will wear. When I’m in class and I inevitably begin to space out, I’ll be thinking of Chevy and Jesse, their lives gone too soon. I’ll be thinking of playing craps on the floor and poker on the table. I’ll remember a time when stepping ankle deep into septic waste was barely the worst part of a day, and that first sip of cold water was always the best.”
The young Army captain in the above photo is Captain Drew Jensen. From the site published in honor of his sacrifice:
Drew lived 18 years in Damascus, OR with his parents and two older brothers. He graduated from Sam Barlow high school in 1998 and then went on to graduate from West Point in 2002. At West Point he attended Airborne School and selected the Infantry branch. Following graduation he attended IOBC and Ranger School at Fort Benning, GA. First duty station was at Fort Lewis, WA as a member of the first Stryker Brigade Combat Team to deploy in support of OIF from November 2003 – October 2004. Throughout the deployment he served as a rifle platoon leader. Upon return of his first deployment he met and married the former Stacia Melton of Portland, OR. He then redeployed with the same Stryker Unit in June of 2008 as a mortar platoon leader for continued support of OIF.
Even after his injury, Drew was grateful for the opportunities the Army provided him.
@MAMAx4 – Thank you for your kind words!I can’t resist the poochy bellies either.
Just reading through your favorites again. Wow, this one really hits home with me. I’ve shouted the same ridiculous things at my son, and now the baby is starting to try the potty. Aren’t girls so much easier with that? Oh, and the laundry! Will it EVER end?! The way you tie up the essay is just wonderful. It totally puts things into perspective. Happy Sunday!
Oh my goodness Jen ~ This post is sooo beautiful and so moving! Thank you for tender touch to this topic. Your little man seems so lovely. Blessings, Kt
Jen – did you receive my e-mail to thank you for the card?
Kat
Thanks for the post, Jen. Reminds me that these little people present so many beautiful moments if we’re paying attention: absolutely LOVE their sleepy farts. They are so unselfconscious.
Thanks once again.
Nicely written post…and the thing about clean faces = good mothers can’t really be true, I hope. 🙂
This is one of the most tender, heartwarming, heart wrenching posts I’ve read in a long time. You have a beautiful way with words. Wow! That pretty much leaves no question who gets my best writer vote at Okiedoke/Oklahoma Blog Awards.
@ all – thank you for comments. They mean so much. And, many prayers for “Kristi” and her mom.
Just the other day I was irritated with my soon to be 16 year old (seems like teens have a special ability to irritate their mothers). I then had this absolutely overwhelming thought of him going off to war, like so many other young men have done, and facing combat. I must have looked stricken because he asked me what was wrong and I thought that I was going to start to cry. It was awful. I immediately forgot what I was so mad about.
I hope none of our children see war either. Such a waste of beautiful life.
Don’t worry about wiping your little guy’s face either – not a big deal in the scheme of things.
Amy
PS LOVE Let It Be – fantastic taste in music. You MUST be a gen-x’er. : )
Mother on Jen … the time is short and so precious … when I get asked back for the upteenth bednite kiss and cuddle I try to recall that one is not stingy with love and that in a few short years I will be lucky to get the first kiss and cuddle let along the fifth one …
I am watching Army Wives … yes I know it is a TV show and yes it is not a doco and yes I know it is probably not real life, but …
when I think of the young people we send to war my stomach knots and my eyes tear and I wonder how could we, how can we and why should we. My admiration for those that serve is mixed with such neagtive emotions towards the real power brokers that make the need to serve so real.
War, what is it good for ?? Absolutely nothing.
love you le
ps I stuck a pink star sticker in the bowl so the lads aim for that – it works wonders having a target in place. 🙂
At first I’m speechless… then I sit and think, as you often have me do…
Your post has me questioning what is the greater love; the individual who chooses to serve our country or the parents who raised these children with such love and value only to risk burying their child.
Jen, you constantly provoke me to think further, I have a great deal of respect for you.
What a lucky boy Sully is to have a mother who is such a prolific writer. What a treasure chest for him to read one day.
I hope all the men and women will be home from Iraq and Afghanistan soon and never have to fight another war.
Hugs
Peggy
that is a lovely post….
(and I don’t clean my boys faces enough either!)
You are a good Mother!! As the Mom of a 32 yr old son with 3 kids of his own, I am always astonished by this fact. I am astonished when he & I talk at what a wonderful man he is, how mature, responsible, hardworking, etc. He is a great Dad, a wonderful husband, & a very good man of whom I am so proud. But I swear to God I put a towheaded, blue eyed little boy in his room just last night & a grownup stanger emerged in the morning. The time of babyhood, childhood, & teenage years does fly by even as they seem, somedays, to be centuries long. The trials & heartaches, the unending tasks seem to stretch out forever in Motherhood, but in the blink of an eye the child is all grown up & a Mother is left to wonder where all those days have gone. The road can be hard, but the Journey is so well worth all that it costs.
I, too, pray Sully will never see combat just as I pray my grandson & granddaughters will not either. One of my best friends whose daughter was in grade school when we met is now awaiting that same daughter’s deployment to Iraq with the Marines. I say a prayer for Kristi everyday that she will be kept safe from harm should she be deployed. She is the only female scheduled to deploy with the unit & her commander has told her that he cannot guarantee her safety, not from the Iraqi & not from the American troops she will be serving with. PLease keep her in your prayers. And keep her Mother there also.
You have such a Spirit-for your children, for your fellowman. You are a good Mother. Why?? Because you care.
Blessed be…