Sadness
My wife is gone again for another tour to the Alaskan wilderness. This time she’ll be gone for a whole month, about the time of her previous stay. This is her third time leaving me for an extended period, and this time was profoundly different from the other two. I never like to see her go, it is literally losing your best friend in the whole world, but it never seems to have struck me as hard as it did this time.
It made me remember a truism I was told by a Canadian armed forces parachute instructor. He was explaining how the third jump with a military parachute (substantially smaller than a recreational one) is the worst you will ever do. It went like this: [WARNING: The rest of this is basically a sorrowful, self-indulgent introspection and is likely pretty damn boring if you’re not me or my wife. You have been warned] (more…)