People enjoy watching “welcome home” videos of military families on Facebook. Many of the people watching the videos just look at the good moment and don’t take the reason for the moment into consideration. I know firsthand what it is like to experience a seemingly picture perfect “welcome ome,” but it is not as great as the Facebook videos portray it to be.
Growing up with a parent in the military never phased me. We never moved, I was never away from either parent for more than a few weeks at a time, and I was able to be tucked into bed by my mom and dad every night.
I never realized what it was like to be in a military family until my mom was deployed, leaving on my thirteenth birthday, just two months before my older sister moved in for her freshman year of college and my brother started middle school and four months before her second grandchild would be born.
Going through a teen year without my mom was traumatic. For that year, I was basically raised by a single father who never knew that raising a daughter on his own could be so difficult. We argued and disagreed often about the simplest of things. During my mothers deployment was one of the few times I have seen my dad feel helpless, like there was nothing he could do to help me, my siblings, or my mom.
Throughout the deployment, I saw my mom in pain. Not pain because she was hurt, pain because she was aching that she was unable to be home with her family, and she began missing so many firsts in our lives.
My mom missed my travel softball team win the state championship. She missed an entire basketball and football season for me and my brother. She missed my brother going on his first vacation without our family. She missed moving my sister into college. She missed her and my father's wedding anniversary. She missed her granddaughter's first birthday party. She missed the birth of her first grandson. She missed the holidays. We celebrated Christmas at 3 A.M. so she was able to Skype with us and watch us open our presents.
Missing these small things may not seem like a big deal to many people, but they change the way military families experience life. These moments are the ones that make you grateful for the things you have and cherish the moments you do get together even more.
These missed experiences are the ones that the “welcome home” videos do not show. They are the moments that other people overlook and take for granted because they don’t have the experience. These videos are not just about the beautiful moments that are seen on camera. There is always a backstory, a story that is unique to each specific family and makes the video special to those who have experienced the moment.
No "welcome home" video is as beautiful as the one you experience yourself.
