I think often of whether I will go out to Colorado Springs when Evan's unit redeploys back to the United States. I always said that I would go-and there may be no way out of it, as I have already told several soldiers from his unit that I would be there. But I wonder how I will bear that day. I lose it completely when I see pictures of homecomings on the internet or facebook-happy pictures of fiancees, husbands, sons, brothers, finally reunited with their loved ones. That day I dreamed about on his first deployment, and his second. I feel physically ill when I see these pictures, because that moment will never come for me or my parents.

I wonder how I will be able to sit there, alone, and watch those reunions. I fantasize that Evan will be there all the time, at that homecoming. I still think sometimes, in my totally nutty moments, that I will go out to Colorado Springs, thinking he won't be there, and he will get off that plane. Mom and I kept asking the two officers at our house, are you sure there's no mistake? Are you sure it's Evan? It has to be a mistake...

I told my Aunt this one day, when I was feeling crazy, because I wasn't used to this grief stuff. She knows all about grief-she lost her husband suddenly, in a car accident. I told her that it was weird, because we were used to Evan not being here for the last 4 years he was in the military. He wasn't supposed to be here, which made it that much harder to accept. I wonder if I go out there, and he's not there, and he doesn't come home-if that's when it will finally hit me with full force. Aunt Claire told me that I was far from crazy. She expected Bob, her husband, to walk in the door every day for years. And he never did.

Evan was coming back to go to college. They said in his memorial service in Colorado Springs that he talked all the time about how he was ready to be done with the Army, and go to college, but he was fulfilling what he committed to do. This makes me crazy too, especially when I think about the people that go AWOL. That don't complete their commitment. Evan was ready to do something else, but he was determined to complete what he had signed up to do. This says volumes about his character. But he sure had a whole lot of living left to do.

I still have plenty of time to decide, as Evan's unit isn't scheduled to redeploy until December. Of course everything in the Army is subject to change, which we realized when he joined. Maybe by then I will just know whether it's good for me or not. Sometimes I think it would help, to be with people that were with him, to talk to them, to answer questions that I need for closure. But as I said before, the thought of watching others reunite happily with their loved ones is sometimes more than I can bear to even think about.