Dear D,

As I write this you are about 4 hours away from being home.  I'm looking forward to it, as always...but I'm also very aware that this return heralds another separation, and the next time you leave it will be for longer than 3 weeks and it'll be to a location much further afield.

This sucks, D.  I don't want you to leave again.  I only just got you back.  Lately our lives seem to have been reduced to a string of tearful departures and homecomings, where we cram as much living as we can into the ever shortening periods in between.  That the conflict in the middle east might end soon is really moot; there will always be something going on that will require your presence, whether it's Iraq or Afghanistan or Haiti or wherever...there will always be SOMETHING.

I don't like going it alone.  I don't like having to be tough, having to be strong.  However, just because I don't like it, doesn't mean I won't do it. I will.  I always will.....

I guess that's the whole point of this article/letter.  You asked me before you left to promise you that I'd never leave you, not for anything....you asked me to always be your wife, to always love you.  I said that I would, that I promised, and I meant it.

And I still mean it.  I always will mean it.  Neither time or distance can change that. All the deployments in the world won't change that.  I may bitch about them, but you know what...?  I'm just bitching.  That's all there is to it. 

I love you.  I can honestly say that I am honestly, truly, totally, madly, in love.  With you.  Perhaps all the 'loves' we had before now were just practice runs, perhaps they were sent to show us what real love is.....either way, they are insignificant moments in time compared to what I have for and with you.  I believe that we are all destined to have one great, everlasting love in our lifetimes....a love that lasts beyond any worldly time or measure.  Some of us don't recognize that opportunity to love as what it is and they let it go; only to spend the rest of their lives trying to find what they lost or passed up. YOU are my one great love, and I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have found and made a life with you.

I've been looking for song lyrics that best describe how I feel about you...and whilst they can't really adequately explain, these are two that come pretty close:

'I will go down with this ship,
I won't put my hands up
and surrender.
There will be no white flag above my door,
I'm in love
and always will be'

(Dido; 'White Flag')

'And this love....
..is like nothing I have ever known.
Take my hand, love..
I'm taking you home....
.....I'm taking you home'

(Don Henly; 'This Love')

Always, D.  Without a doubt, always.

Ad infinitum.