Hate Mail

I am exhausted. I arrived home very late last night. I threw my bags down and ran out to check the car. Three low tires, one VERY low tire. After consulting my sister-in-law if it was safe to drive the car to the gas station, I very slowly left the driveway and crawled to the corner. After finally filling the tires I was off to Wal-Mart. I love shopping here. Everything is so cheap compared to D.C. I'm not sure if I will ever complain about grocery prices again after our short stay in the city. I piled the cart full of goodies and returned home to catch a few hours of sleep.

After only a rough six hours of sleep I woke to a phone call. J.R. evidently missed me so much he had to call at the crack of dawn.... nice. I knew I had a lot to get done today so I rolled out of bed and showered. I pulled out my computer to read the news while I ate breakfast only to discover that the wireless internet was not working. An hour later I was finally off the phone with Charter. They claim that because my services sat idle for so long they had to reboot everything. I pay them every month so that when I get a rare chance to come home I have the comforts available. I expect them to work. It shouldn't matter if they are being used regularly or not. They're getting paid regularly. So one very heated discussion and the tone was set for the rest of the day. It was time to move on to fixing the cell phone.

I turned my cell phone off last night for my flight. It's never fully recovered. I can power the phone on but all I see is a white light. There is absolutely no display. I can still make calls (if I can remember your number) and I can still receive calls (and I can't screen them so now is your chance to reach me), but I can't see a thing. The T-Mobile store was no help. Evidently they can't sell me a new phone unless I sign up for a new plan. Morons. So I spent the rest of the day trying to call T-Mobile. I finally got through and ended up purchasing a new phone. It wont be in my hands until Wednesday so until then I just have to make the broken screen work. One more headache to add to the pile.

As for the rest of the day, I spent it moving small items in my apartment downstairs with Tina. Our poor two bedroom apartment is just jammed with stuff. We worked all day and feel as if we didn't even make a dent. My legs are already sore from all of the trips up and down the steps and I still have another whole day of moving left. At least tomorrow there is a big group of people coming to help.

I received my first bit of hate mail today. "Quit playing the victims and move on with your lives... how pathetic." At first I was a little taken by the e-mail. Offended and disgusted. I've been thinking about this for most of the day. We will always be a victim of war. My husband lost body parts. He is not physically a whole person anymore. When you look at him you can see he was injured. We will never be able to hide that. Moving forward with your life after something this traumatic is not an easy task. You can't erase the memory of a bomb blasting through your window and blowing your arm off. You can however learn from the path that life is leading you down and try to become whole once again. Yes, we both have our moments where we sit down and feel as if the world has ended and we can't move forward one more day. We will continue to have those moments. So yes, I am a victim. Pathetic I am not.

I did not run away from my husband's injuries. I did not try to hide him from the world. I bathed him, feed him, turned the pages in his books when he could not. I slept next to him in the hospital for two months straight. I hugged him and reassured him that life would continue and he would be O.K. I have been there for the best moments, and I will continue to be there for the really horrible ones. I am a young wife. At twenty years old a lot has been asked of me. I do not regret what has happened. I may be angry and bitter about it at the moment, but if given the option I wouldn't change his injury and I wouldn't leave his side. If you find this pathetic then I am very interested in what your personal beliefs are.