fivebyevif

Quite often, I wish I could have met my great-uncle Wilbur Russell.

I don’t like to talk politics. When it comes down to it, we all have made up our minds based on the best information we have on hand and a woman (or man)’s opinion should be respected as their own. My beliefs won’t change yours, and shouldn’t. Facts should be the decider, not blowhard punditry.

I don’t like to talk about the war. My stepfather is career military who went overseas during Desert Storm/Shield. My father is retired Navy. Most of my friends in high school were military brats or Marines. My brother-in-law is a former Marine, and now a police officer. He and I have had some pretty passionate debates on what the USA is doing in the Mideast, but it feels hypocritical for me, a career civilian, to argue with a guy who was there in Baghdad.

I keep praying my family’s luck holds up. Carl came home. His brother (my other great-uncle) came home. I want them all to come home. I don’t want to hear about schools being bombed or parliaments being blown up or crowded marketplaces turning into massacres. I don’t want to hear about soldiers dying. I don’t want to sit in my car crying anymore when the latest reports come in over NPR news.

But that’s only in the abstract. Being selfish, what I really want is for my kin to come home, whole, happy, and ready to make me a steak next time I come visiting.

Oh, let’s be honest. I don’t really even need the damn steak.

(Come home safe, please.)