We Were About To Become Empty Nesters. Then My Husband Made A Shocking Decision.

My husband has been my “person” for more than half my life. We met when I was fresh out of school, a 23-year-old nurse taking care of one of his patients. He was a first-year surgical resident. He asked my coworker for permission to look up my phone number on the Rolodex at the nurses’ station.

“A what?” my kids would ask whenever we recounted this story. Those were the early days before we settled down and bought a house, which, over the course of seven years, gradually filled until we had four children.

Raising our kids kept us busy — in so many good ways, but busy nonetheless. People, mostly parents themselves, would remind me of that old saying, “The days are long, but the years are short.” At that time, the days mostly felt long to me. Now I look back on them with nostalgia while I sit in a very quiet house.

Some nights, I miss hearing little bare feet running down the hallway to our bed after a bad dream. Time has raced by faster than I could have predicted — just as all those people promised me it would.

I always thought when our nest was empty, my husband and I would have the freedom to do whatever we pleased. I fantasized about a more mature version of life in our 20s — less responsibility, more freedom. We could eat cereal for dinner or hop in the car on a Friday and see where the road took us. Perhaps I imagined doing what we are doing tonight — stripping off our clothes and jumping into bed. My husband joining the Army was never part of that vision.

Everything changed one day as he and I were driving home from New York City to Boston a few years ago. We had just dropped our son off at college. At that time, we had two kids who had left the house and two still living with us. 

I am grateful that he was the one driving. If I had been behind the wheel when he told me he wanted to join the Army’s medical corps, I might have slammed on the brakes right there in the middle of the Merritt Parkway. If I had not been what suddenly felt like trapped in that vehicle, I might have run. Maybe this is why he chose that moment to broach the topic.  

He explained the details of this military program for surgeons. It involved a total commitment of two years and required several one-month training sessions and one weekend away at a domestic base each month. All of these sessions would prepare him to set up a field hospital and command the unit that ran it.

Sometime during those two years, my husband would be deployed for three months to implement all the skills he had learned while caring for soldiers.  He would not know the location of his deployment for some time. He would keep his regular job in Boston, and we would not need to relocate. After his commitment was fulfilled, he would be given the option — not the requirement — to renew for another two years, which he assured me he would not do without my agreement.