We had our first casualty this week. The Soldier, a young man named SPC Jeffrey Lee White Jr. died on April 3.

I did not know this Soldier. He was part of another Battalion within our Brigade. The Brigade has several thousand Soldiers and each Battalion has several hundred, I don’t personally know them all.

Even though I don’t know him or his family, his death makes me sad. And scared. When I heard we had a casualty I cried. I went to my room, closed the door, and sobbed for a long time. I cried for him and for his family, for his fellow Soldiers, and for the others injured in the incident.

But mostly, I cried for me. Because my husband is over there too and all of the sudden the possibility that it could have been him became all too real. I always knew it was a possibility. I have always known that some of our soldiers wouldn’t come home. But until that moment, I don’t think I’d allowed myself to think about how it would feel.

That’s the thing about a deployment. Some days it’s not that bad. I just live my life. I laugh with the kids, chat with friends, and go about my day. On the good days I might talk to him or chat online. It’s not completely unbearable.

There are days when I’m angry at him for being gone. When I’m exhausted and stressed out. When the kids are at each other or at me. Days when everything goes wrong and I’m almost certain it’s the Army’s fault for taking my husband away for so long.

Other days I’m sad because I miss him. I miss him a lot. Everything about him, even the annoying stuff. Or the kids miss him. Reese woke up the other morning and the first thing he said was, “did Daddy send a new picture?” It broke my heart to think he was probably dreaming about Daddy, missing him even while he slept.

That’s just how it is. Good days. Bad days. Terrible days. Waiting for him to come back.

Army wives aren’t any more brave than anyone else. We just understand it. We know our husband’s joined the Army knowing they would never get rich or famous. They knew they would have to leave us for long stretches of time. They knew they might die.

And sometimes they do.

This post is linked to Yeah Write.

I’m being serious. That’s what real friends do. I complain about Alaska a lot. Maybe a little too much. It’s not all bad. It might sound crazy, but even though I hate living in Alaska, this is (and I think always will be) my favorite stop on our journey. Alaska will always be special because of the friends I’ve made here. I’m lucky enough to not have one or two good friends, but lots. On this day I had ten friends give up their Saturday afternoon to do strenuous, slightly dangerous, and messy work shoveling off my roof.

Ten.

Not only did they show up with their snow gear and shovels, but they all had smiles on their faces.

We were the happiest roof-shoveling crew ever.

We managed to get the roof cleared in just over an hour. Pretty impressive if you asked me. Obviously you would ask me, who else would you ask? This is my blog.

You might be wondering where all of our children were while we were on the roof. Luckily, we had a crew of babysitters inside the house. I think their job might have been tougher than shoveling!

The best part of today was after the chore was done and we all came inside, ate, drank, and were generally merry. I made chicken tacos. Since I know everyone is going to be sore tomorrow I crushed up a bottle of ibuprofen in the chicken. You’re welcome.

Just kidding.

It was Percocet.