Sergeant’s sacrifice hurts a little more during the holidays

Posted in Mom Stuff
by Lorain County Moms

By Aisha Sultan, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

There was a photo displayed on a piece of plywood next to Jeffrey Shilanski’s bed. On the top, left-hand corner of the makeshift bulletin board, he could see his 9-year-old son in a purple and black football uniform and his 11-year-old daughter in her purple and white cheerleading outfit.

They are standing outside the Edward Jones Dome with his wife, about to take the field for a halftime show during a Rams game last year. The moment is so far away from the tent he shared with six other Marines in the Afghan desert.

But, it is a piece of home he kept close to him when oceans separated them.

Gunnery Sgt. Shilanski, 36, has missed first words and first steps. He’s lost two football seasons, countless basketball and baseball games. There were school projects and homework assignments that could have used his help. He is familiar with the ache of loneliness that comes each time he is deployed. He enlisted six days after graduating high school and has been stationed abroad three times since he became a father.

Most recently, he served a tour in Iraq and Afghanistan, training Afghani police and military forces.

Parents routinely make sacrifices — for principles, for money, for survival. The hardest ones are those that tear us away from parts of our soul — our children, our families.

Shilanski coped with the distance in the logical, methodical way a soldier likely would. He reminded himself that the separation was a result of a choice he made. It was a price he deemed fair for what he was getting in exchange: the chance to do the work he loves, serve a cause he believes in and provide better opportunities for his family. He stayed busy and focused on the job at hand.

In the earlier days, he would have to rely on letters to get updates on his infant daughter. Weeks would pass without any communication between him and his wife. But, things have changed. Last year, he was able to call home once a week.

For those us who have spent little time away from our children, this sort of separation, especially by choice, is hard to fathom. Granted, there are more ways than ever to stay in touch with far-flung loved ones, with Skype, video chatting, instant messaging, e-mails and texts.

It is something. But it is not a substitute.

It’s not the same as actually holding your children in your arms, feeling the warmth of an embrace, the rise and fall of their chests against you. It’s not the same as knowing they are asleep in the bedroom down the hall or hearing the spontaneous laughter and unexpected questions that pop up during the day.

My father spent a year and a half away from us. He left Houston’s troubled economy for a job in Atlanta, when the city was booming. He would fly or drive home the last weekend of every month. There were five children at the time. I was in 7th grade, and my youngest brother was 2 years old.

He remembers the emptiness. There is a particular hollowness to an empty space once filled by your children.

It is hardest on the spouse left behind to shoulder all responsibilities and duties. Children are typically resilient. I don’t remember much of that time when he was gone, but when I asked my parents about it recently, the memory sounded vivid in their voices.

Shilanksi says the moment when he was reunited with his family this past summer is hard to describe.

“Of course, there is unbelievable joy,” he said. There was a crush of people at the airport, and he said he kept telling himself: “Do not cry. Do not cry in front of all these people.”

Aisha Sultan is a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Contact her at asultan@post-dispatch.com.