In a life that’s always saying goodbye, they’ve learned to make a home out of hello, and to treat every small moment like the big love story it really is. They kissed in an arcade like carefree teenagers, then wandered into a tiny boutique where he insisted on buying her a pair of black satin heels with a ruffle down the side. Only one size left hers. When they slipped on like they were made for her, she thought, almost laughing at herself, “This feels like Cinderella. Maybe I’ve met my prince.”
It was their first in-person date, sweet and messy, the kind that lives in the soft part of memory. She was a single mom who’d taken a wild leap from Connecticut to California with barely a thousand dollars and a promise to herself to start over. A new job at a San Diego startup fell into place after a fluke New York interview. Fate, she kept saying, fate, and a lot of grit.
They had met at a friend’s house, but real getting-to-know-you came later, through months of emails while he was at sea. Internet on his ship came and went; messages stacked up for days. They built a rhythm: questions, stories, little jokes, pressing send, and waiting. When he came home, their “first” date felt more like a reunion. He was quiet, kind, generous, and a little formal about sailors’ careers. He spoke about making Chief Petty Officer; his whole face lit up. She didn’t understand the Navy yet, ranks, acronyms, the code of it all, but she understood that light.
Love moved fast because the military moves fast. There was no grand proposal on one knee; there was a decision in a parked car on a California mountain. Orders to Virginia arrived before their boxes were unpacked. If they were going to stay together, the choice was clear. In June 2007, she wore a white sundress to a courthouse wedding crowded with couples, half in white, half in uniform. Her daughter witnessed. They promised a big celebration later. Life never opened that window.
He shipped out for a nine-month deployment. She returned to Connecticut to wait and work, sending care packages and building plans. When he came back, they conceived immediately, joy rushing in before a house even did. Their daughter, Gianna, was diagnosed in the third trimester with Edwards syndrome. Doctors told them to prepare for the worst. She arrived in January 2009, fragile and fierce, lived five luminous months, and changed them forever. He read the Bible to her in the NICU. The tough sailor cried freely when he held her skin to skin. Grief delayed itself and then landed heavily.
They moved into a new home in Virginia and tried to stitch a life from fresh paint and casseroles. The house quieted; the loneliness did not. His sea duty pulled him away in two-week and ten-day slices; middle school tested her older daughter; nursing school gave her something solid to hold. On Gianna’s first birthday, dizzy from emotion and errands, she grabbed a dollar-store test with the balloons and learned she was pregnant again.
Fate, again. He was at sea when their son was born in September 2010; the Red Cross relayed the news to his ship. He met his boy for the first time at winter homecoming, wrapped him up, and never really let go. When their son was seven months old, they discovered they were expecting again. In 2012, a daughter arrived, healthy and squalling and perfect. He cried again, different tears this time, the kind that washes fear away.
Years sped by. He rose from second class to Master Chief, steady as a metronome, gone more than home. The pandemic gave them borrowed time together; then the machine started again. Thirteen deployments and counting. She pressed pause on nursing to raise their children and hold down the fort. She learned the strange math of military love: how two people can be entirely devoted and still miss chapters of each other’s days.
He missed birthdays, ball games, and dance recitals, but also the tiny things that make a family: inside jokes, late-night snack raids, the quiet after chores, and the dog’s leash jingling at dusk. The worst parts, she says, are the transitions, the month before he leaves and the one after he returns. Tempers flare, lists grow long, repairs get rushed, and everyone hoards time like it might break. Homecoming is beautiful, yes, but re-weaving routines was work. And then they do it all over again, because duty calls and love answers.
People ask how they keep going. She points to the moments. The ones he doesn’t miss. Bedtime snuggles. Eight-hour dance marathons where he’s up in the bleachers, clapping anyway. Late drives from baseball practice, tangled strings of Christmas lights. Sunday breakfasts, he insists on making. He takes her plate, folds her laundry, pulls her close like no time has passed. When he’s home, they notice everything because they know what it costs to be together.
