Feeling: Worried
Listening to: Blue October - Breakfast After Ten
Reading/Watching: --

When mon coeur was a kid, his dad was in the Navy, so the family moved every few years. He remembers moving a lot, and always having to leave something behind.

He never suffered from that intense loneliness that military brats can feel, because wherever he went, he still had his brother. They were identical twins, and stuck together through everything. Not much money to spare, so not a lot of toys or luxuries or after-school clubs, but he and his brother would wander all over the wilderness together, thinking of things to do. He loves to tell me stories.

They graduated high school by the skin of their teeth, thanks to moving twice in four years and having to re-adjust to joint custody when their parents divorced. His mom told them both to join the Air Force, because she feared that once they turned 18 her boyfriend would kick them out of the house, and their dad was in no shape to support them.

They were separated after Basic Training, and kept spotty correspondence through e-mail and online games. They started visiting regularly once they had driver's licenses and money to buy plane tickets.

In 2006, they both finished their enlistment with the Air Force. Mon coeur found a job in his field in the civilian world. His brother was not so lucky. So he moved his new wife to Tennessee and joined the Army.

He left for a fifteen-month deployment to Afghanistan yesterday.

If you pray... well, do. Mon coeur tells me stories about his childhood that break my heart, but the bright spot in all of them is his twin. He never had a "childhood home," or a stable family unit, or even a parent who could manage to save two nickels and not spend them selfishly. But he always had his brother.

Please God, always let him have his brother.

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