bring on the tears

not that i hope anyone will ever purposefully utilize this information, but one of the quickest ways to make me cry is to turn on video of military dads & husbands & boyfriends coming back from overseas and their families seeing them for the first time in months...especially the kids, when they're surprised.  i saw a facebook video montage a while ago of these kind of clips & watched it with tear-filled eyes, but not knowing exactly why.  and then about 2 weeks ago i watched a movie called "the lost valentine" - a hallmark made-for-tv movie with betty white & jennifer love hewitt.  cried in the first 10 min. when betty white's husband went off to world war II, but bawled at the end when they brought his body back from the phillipines 40 years later. 

finally today, i saw a commercial for a new show on lifetime called "coming home," where soldiers' homecomings are documented.  a 30-second commercial made me cry.  and not just tear upa bit, but actual crocodile tears.  what hits me, as i now have figured out, is that i can relate to the kids & families.  that's why the clips bother me so much....they hit too close to home, even though i don't have any family in the war right now and never have. 

when i was a young'un, dad was in the coast guard.  so, military.  but a safe version, especially since he didn't work on the rescue team & there wasn't really any war going on that he had any danger of being sent off to.  but there were several years when dad was stationed at nearby shoal cove and could only come home on the weekends, and the year when he was stationed down in alameda, california & the rest of us stayed here in ketch to work & go to school.  so while my dad wasn't a soldier and wasn't a part of some war and we knew he would be coming home for sure, i know the heartbreak that those kids & families from the video clips feel when their loved one is gone for a long period of time.  i was luckier than most since i didn't have to worry about bombs or insurgents killing my dad, but when you're a little girl and your daddy is gone, it doesn't matter where in the world he is--just that he's not home with you.

while i support our troops, i wish for peace in the world so there are far fewer reasons for families to be split apart...