THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 16, 1995 TAG: 9511160421
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: HOLLY & BOBBY
CHAPTER 5: ANXIOUS WEEKS
They say a marriage can survive anything if it survives a six-month
deployment. Holly and Bobby White know. For six months, they opened up
their home, their letters and their thoughts as the carrier Theodore
Roosevelt sailed an ocean away.
SOURCE: BY KERRY DEROCHI, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 121 lines
Holly White woke up nervous, her mind racing.
She was supposed to give a presentation for a group of Navy personnel today. It was her first attempt at public speaking; she didn't want to make any mistakes. She took a shower, careful not to wake her two sons in the next room. She picked up a plastic bowl and started scooping out the pool of water left in the bottom of the tub.
The clog in the drain had worsened, she thought. She really should call maintenance, but they wouldn't come unless she was at home. That would mean taking a day off.
She couldn't afford to take any more time. She leaned forward and kept scooping.
She'd have to do it herself.
She always did.
In the five months her husband had been at sea, she'd worked full time and taken care of her two sons. She'd paid all their bills and made time to write the newsletter for the ship's wives.
Somehow, she had managed without him. She'd held it together.
``There were a lot of people who had it worse than me,'' Holly said. ``People who were stuck at home, staring at the calendar. I kept busy.''
Keeping busy. It was her motto.
The hours passed quickly if she just stayed focused. She thought about Bobby only at night, when the house was quiet and she was alone.
In the morning, she didn't have time.
At 6:45 a.m., Holly woke the boys and helped them get dressed for school. Robby walked sleepily downstairs. She carried Cody into the living room and plopped him onto the couch.
Even the boys had been behaving, she thought. No more temper tantrums. No more fights at school. Robby had grown a lot in these five months. He had tried to take care of her. When she sobbed at the end of the movie ``Pocahontas,'' he calmly stroked her hair.
``It will be all right, Mom,'' he said.
Holly looked contentedly around their two-story apartment tucked into the north corner of the Norfolk Naval Air Station.
It was messy, cluttered, the way Bobby hated. But she knew where everything was.
The bills were piled on the kitchen table. Every two weeks, she went through them, writing hundreds of dollars in checks for the boys' tuition at the church school, making the payment on their 1991 Buick Regal.
She knew Bobby would be proud. He was due home in less than a month, when the carrier Theodore Roosevelt returned from its Mediterranean deployment.
Holly wasn't sure she was ready.
She'd hoped to clear more of their credit card debt while Bobby was gone. She'd wanted to lose some weight.
But mostly, she wasn't sure she was ready to share.
She knew it was the normal progression of a deployment. Sadness at the loss is followed by a kind of numbing. Friendships are formed with other wives trapped in the same situation.
And then there's the freedom.
Freedom to order pizza and watch rented movies, to stay over at a friend's house all night with the kids.
It's the freedom she'd miss the most.
``You're excited because they're coming home, but you're independent now and it's kind of hard,'' Holly said. ``Once your husband comes back, you know it will never be the same.
``Then you feel guilty for feeling that way.''
You wonder how things will be different. A six-month absence isn't easily absorbed, even in a long-term marriage. It's difficult to move forward if you're out of step.
Holly, sometimes, worried about the future, about herself and Bobby. She thought about how much she'd changed since he'd been gone.
``It made me feel better about myself, it made me feel better about our relationship,'' Holly said.
That morning, after feeding the boys their breakfast, Holly piled them into the car and dropped them at school before heading to work at the Norfolk Naval Station. On the way, she thought about her job.
She liked her position. She enjoyed helping people. It was challenging, finding them the money they needed to transfer or visit their new duty station. She felt needed.
She'd always thought of herself as a nurse. She'd even taken a few classes when she was out of high school. But after the boys were born, there wasn't enough money for school. The bills had to be paid.
When she arrived at the office, she was handed a message. The woman who was supposed to share the presentation was sick. Holly had to do it by herself.
She was getting used to this.
At 1 p.m., she gave a two-hour workshop on how to fill out travel request forms. Her voice shook at times, and there even was a fire drill in the middle.
But Holly finished without any mistakes.
She had made it. She'd handled it all.
Without Bobby.
Tomorrow: The wake-up: Bobby comes home. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
GARY C. KNAPP
With just a few weeks before the Roosevelt's return, Holly worries
she isn't ready to give up the independence she has learned to
enjoy.
Got some GREAT NEWS TONIGHT!!! I get to fly home from Bermuda on the
18th of September. Do I tell Holly? Thinking about the last scene in
An Officer and a Gentleman. Makes me not want to . . . Works been
busy. So ready to go home.
B.W., aboard the Roosevelt
Photo
GARY C. KNAPP
It is the night before Bobby returns. Holly has grown accustomed to
her time with the boys, and to the freedom of coming and going as
she pleases, to watch the videos she chooses and to be more relaxed
about housekeeping. She knows changes are coming.
by CNB