family

Sometimes she brought home baked cookies. More often, it was her much-requested fresh salsa. "Change your clothes; we're going to Daddy's work," she'd say as she fixed her own hair and makeup. Going to Daddy's work was a special treat, filled with excitement. It meant seeing my hero strong and handsome in his uniform, sitting on his lap "driving" in the parking lot with lights and sirens on. It meant a group of hungry officers happily greeting my mom and me, and the salsa. It meant taking a nap in the dark dispatch room. Growing up with "the boys in blue" meant Christmas parties where the Chief dressed as Santa. It meant boys were afraid to date me. It was being embarrassed to be seen with my dad when he worked undercover and grew out his hair and beard. It meant being a part of a family, one that mourned when another fell, seeing that dreaded stripe across the badge. It meant growing up knowing people hated your Daddy, that someone he had arrested stalked your Mama when she was pregnant with you. It meant being in high school and hearing about the "pigs," and knowing these "pigs," who just wanted to go home to read bedtime stories and tirelessly run up and down the street until it was safe to be on two wheels. It was a bright light in my face in a dark parking lot and an immediate, "Miss Gray, what would your dad think? I'm going to call him." It was kisses on my cheeks on my wedding day from men and women who watched me grow up, men and women who would take a bullet for my Daddy. Being a police officer's daughter meant questions- "Has he ever killed anyone?" "Aren't you afraid he's going to get shot?"

Fast forward a few decades, and it's the same questions, only this time about my soldier husband. And again, the same feeling of family. When I became a wife, I followed the example my mom set. Growing up, I learned to love rough men who loved gently, dancing on the toes of dangerous men. When we were engaged, I had dreams that our home would be a soft place to land for single soldiers. It's hard to deny dinner to someone who would take a bullet, grenade, or IED for your spouse. Being a military wife means a ragtag group of people for Thanksgiving; it means a text saying "I invited one more. I hope that's okay." It means metal bracelets carved in memoriam of fallen soldiers. It's 550 cord and duffel bags and smelly green socks. It's drunken stories that start with, "The day we got blown up for the third time..." It's peeled beer bottles and cigarettes on anniversaries of deaths. It's grown men exclaiming, "Furniture!" because they are so happy to be out of the barracks and into a home with couches and tables and chairs. It's buckets and water and blankets when they've drank too much, and kissing them on the foreheads before bed. It's care packages and choppy phone calls. It's the look in their eyes when you call them by their first name just days after coming back from deployment. It's the startled look when they tell you no one has called them that since they last saw their mom over a year ago. It's having a group of protective brothers that come and go, who are stretched from California to Georgia to South Korea.  It means family- not because of shared genes or the same last name, but because of a uniform worn.