One of the most "fun" things you get to experience prior to your spouse deploying, is having "The What If" talk with your spouse. My husband and I had to divide this talk into sections in order to make it through all of it, sober. One night early last fall, we had to stop "The Funeral" talk after two bottles of wine because both of us were suddenly howling drunk laughing over what he wanted for his eulogy.
The sections of this pre-deployment talk can best be described as:
Part A) The Power of Attorney Talk
Part B) The Living Will Talk, AKA the Please-Unplug-Me Discussion
Part C) The Funeral/Burial Talk
Part D) The Will Talk
Part A is simple enough, Matt went to the JAG office and had a general POA drawn up so that I had authority to manage our finances, real estate, legal affairs, and various other odds and ends that may crop up during his absence. A Power of Attorney is a fact of life in the military, so all he really had to do was take an old one in and get it renewed until 2008.
The Part B talk is where things started to get interesting because I learned some surprising new things about my husband and his views on issues like organ donation and medical technology. He had his wishes drawn up to the letter because, unfortunately, his parents are born-again Xtian fundamentalists and should the worst happen (heaven forbid), a Terri Schiavo Part II episode would probably ensue. He doesn’t want me to have to go through what Michael had to with Terri, so he left no doubt in his living will what he does, and more importantly, does not want done for him in the event he becomes permanently incapacitated. Basically, he wants unplugged. I promised him that I would respect and honor his wishes.
Part B is where I had to start thinking about the very real possibility that I may become the "W" word: a Widow. Part B made me realize I need a Plan B for my life, just in case.
Part C was very hard to talk about (for me) because he initially wanted to be cremated. I have a personal revulsion to cremation because the thought of being burned to a crisp is horrifying to me. Addtionally, I want to be with my husband in death, but I don’t want to be cremated due to my personal problem with cremation. Incidentally, he and I first chose to have this part of the discussion at a steak house here in San Antonio. If people around us were eavesdropping, it served them right that this discussion was what they heard.
This is where he said "You know, you’ve never told me what you want me to do with you." And I answered him with "Well, I always thought I’d be wherever you were." He was silent for a while and then he said he’d have to rethink what he wanted done.
A few weeks later (during the uncorking of a lovely Cabernet Sauvignon) he told me that he wanted a military burial at Ft. Sam Houston National Cemetery here in San Antonio; and he had it written into his will so his parents couldn’t challenge me on that either.
That same evening, at the uncorking of a Syrah, we started discussing his obituary, and what he wanted at his funeral. He told me, in no uncertain terms, that should the unthinkable happen, under no circumstances should I allow his funeral to become a "Rah Rah Hooah" event for the higher ranking officers in his branch.
For those of you not familiar with the military, there are plenty of Colonels who will take any opportunity to grandstand, AKA "Star Gaze" and they have no shame where or when they do the grandstanding either. Unfortunately, there is an O-6 in the PT Corps who would do this, and has done this at other (non-funeral) events. In Matt’s will, he forbids this Colonel from even attending his service in order to prevent this from happening at our expense.
At the end of the Part C discussion, we were at the bottom of the second bottle so we took turns humorously eulogizing him. He forbid me from ever mentioning the time he got so blitzed at Oktoberfest in Munich, that he slept through his trainstop at our town and took the train all the way to Hamburg. Then he made it over to Wolfsburg Germany because he was so slurringly drunk the conductor thought he said he wanted to go to Wolfsburg instead of Wurzburg. A day and a half later, and $200 poorer, he finally made it home; to be greeted by a less than pleased wifey-poo. Oops.
We even tried to guess how our dogs would eulogize him. He was hoping that Major forgot about the time Matt threw up after catching Major eating his own dookie during the puppyhood months.
Part D has not taken place. I could not open his will and read his wishes in front of him, even drunk from good wine. The day he left I came home and read it by myself, had a very good cry, and then tucked it into our safe, where it remains. The thought of having to live my life without him in it is too terrifying to think about. I'd rather live with a little bit of denial in my life right now.
Yesterday, the Last Wills and Testaments of Anthony White, Jason W. Swiger, Jason Nunez, and Orlando E. Gonzalez were pulled out of safe keeping, and read in their entireties. Their final wishes are being honored; and promises made to honor those wishes will, unfortunately be promises kept.
These four soldiers were part of Fort Bragg's 82nd Airborne Division. Ft. Bragg recently had to cancel a celebration because too many of the Division's troops were deployed.
All of the U.S. fatalities can be seen here or here. They all had loved ones, families and friends. The DoD news releases are here.
I Got the News Today is a diary series intended to honor, respect and remind. This series is maintained by i dunno, with the help of Sandy on Signal, monkeybiz and myself.
Click here for the previous diary in this series or click the IGTNT tag.