Proverbs 14:10 says, “Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy.” I faked joy for Josh and growled at people under my breath. I threw my hands up at God and asked where He was, not realizing He was the only one there.
I reread our final messages to each other again and again. Trying not to let the tears swell or the fog to drift back in, I concentrated on what was coming next: seeing Josh again.
At some point, Cathi got out of the hospital room and called me. Her voice and spirit were tired. She was running on fumes. She assured me that she was just going to take a few minutes to recollect herself, and then she and Josh were doing breathing treatments for the rest of the night, no excuses. I thanked her immensely for the effort she was putting in to get Josh on the plane the next day, but after hearing his voice I wasn’t getting my hopes up. I woke up to my phone buzzing at 5:00 a.m. It was a text from Cathi: YOUR HUSBAND IS COMING HOME! This is why I didn’t have a passport. Never in a million years would I have been able to push my husband for fourteen hours of breathing treatments to get him on a plane back to the US. This was a mission that could only be done by a nurse who raised her patient to be a fighter. This is why it had to be Cathi instead of me. I was going to meet my husband stateside. A soldier’s return home to his wife.
Next stop: Reagan National Airport near Washington, DC, and then meeting Josh at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
CHAPTER THREESEEING HOPE
In every way and everywhere we accept this with all gratitude.
—Acts 24:3
PAIGE
Sitting on my fourth flight in five days, I was physically and mentally depleted. My body was taking inventory of what little water, food, and sleep I had gotten over the last couple of days. But I felt… good? Was that really the right word? I at least felt hope. In less than forty-eight hours, I went from believing my husband could be brain damaged to learning that not even a bomb could crush his spirits. I reflected on the dozens of others in Josh’s battalion who had been injured or killed and felt so blessed. How irreplaceable and precious is a person’s spirit, the unique part of us that is made in God’s image. The part of us that can push through anything. The part of us that asks for one more chance at life when death is knocking.
As I stepped off the plane at Reagan National Airport, an elderly woman asked where I was headed with such a big smile. I replied, “My husband is back from Afghanistan.”
A black SUV came and picked me up and took me to the Marriott on Pooks Hill Road in Bethesda, Maryland, where I waited for a call from Cathi to tell me the medevac flight had landed at the Air Force base with all the new patients. Cathi called about an hour after I got there and said that they were close to the hospital. I requested a ride to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and was dropped off at the largest emergency room entrance I had ever seen. Workers in the lobby said they had just taken about twelve amputees upstairs. An Army officer met me downstairs to escort me up to Josh’s room. I figured there would be some sort of necessary dialogue between us confirming my identity and which soldier I was there to see, but he kept trying to “warn me” about my soldier’s condition. I just wanted this guy to shut up and show me to Josh’s room! After I made it clear that I was not going to stand in the waiting room all day, he finally registered which soldier I was here to see and took me upstairs to Josh’s ICU room. As I was walking through the unfamiliar halls, I felt a painful lump in my throat that indicated I might either burst into tears or scream. I felt the slightest twinge of guilt for being so excited. I would have traded all his suffering for double the deployment time if I could, but the last five days had been the most horrible days of my entire life. Five days ago, I thought he might not make it. Four and a half days ago, I thought he might be brain dead. Three days ago, I thought he would be stranded in Germany alone. Two days ago, I thought he might die on the flight home from Germany if his lungs weren’t up to standard. I didn’t know what the next five days, five years, or five minutes held, but we would be together. In sickness and in health, I thought as I slivered through the slowly opening elevator doors. I’m in this for the sickness and the health, my mind murmured as I frantically peered through the ICU bay curtains, reading every sign desperately looking for the name Wetzel. Sweating now, I was almost tempted to call out his name. There were so many amputees, none of whom looked like their normal selves. In the confusion of the missing arms, missing legs, slings, splints, eye patches, tubes, and monitors, and the frustration of
