Afterall, you did live IN ME for 9 months...

My son comes home tomorrow after a 5 year tour overseas. He enlisted right out of high school, literally, and has been home once a year since, for about 10 days at a time. For any of you military moms (and dads) out there, you know how stressful it is to wait for that phone call or get an email (sometimes an actual letter) hearing about how your baby child son is managing to live without you when he has never spent more than a few days away from home over the last 18 years. 5 years is a lot of waiting and wondering, fashioning care packages filled with all the comforts of home; trying not to write "I LOVE YOU" all over the package so not to embarrass him in front of his shipmates. But they will never understand the bond a mother has with her son. He has never missed a mother's day or birthday. Calls when he sad or having girl trouble, or just to say he loves me. Mama's boy? OK, sure. I am okay with that and so is he.

You can't understand this feeling of separation (I believe) unless you've carried a child inside of you... nourished. 

I turned around and you were 23.

I am so proud of you.