When Tommi Needs to Talk

Right now it doesn’t matter that I’m in graduate school, that there’s another assignment due – always another assignment due, that there’s a class to teach or a meeting to get to … when Tommi needs to talk, I stop what I am doing and … talk.

Tommi is my daughter and a soldier recently deployed to service in Iraq (see previous post), an officer in military intelligence trained with the Minnesota National Guard. She’s been on post in the Baghdad area for a little more than a week now, and I find that, as she tells her story to me, there is a story of my own taking shape.

“I am …” admits a fascinating toss of ingredients when I give any thought to defining me in these days of my life: a doctoral student at fifty-one years – that in itself quite a story to tell, a long-distance wife, a mom of three (or more, depending on how you count), a daughter, a tennis partner, a friend, a counselor, an artist, a volunteer … but of course we all have a rack of hats demanding wear time – I know. As precariously balanced as those competing realities could be for me, I was nonetheless doing ok … until Tommi began to call from Baghdad.

The “call” is really an IM (instant messaging) connection, so there’s little room for multi-tasking – my attentions must be entirely commanded by our conversation. I don’t need to be told how lucky I am to hear from my daughter each day or to be reminded there are scores of parents across the U.S. and elsewhere who pass days and weeks with no more than conviction in faith that a call will sooner or later confirm their belief in the sustained well being of their child. In this sense I am blessed. I know she is alive.

In a different sense, however, an informed awareness of her other worldly experiences deprives me of an ability to “hide” from another kind of knowing. When Tommi calls, I listen to her, and I am forced to know what the circumstances of my own surroundings might otherwise have allowed me to forget. Suspending the knowledge of her reality in favor of an easier, numbing preoccupation with my own noisy days is no longer an option for me. In those moments I am her mom, her friend, and a single anchor for securing remembrance. I am a safe place for speaking away some of the weight of her day.

She asks if I can “take it.”

“If you can’t listen to what I’m going to tell you without freaking out,” she will say, “then I’ll tell you only what the rest of the folks tell their families… It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m safe. Everything is great.”

“No,” I say, “I can take it. I’m with you. I’m cool.”

What else would a mother say?

So here begins my/her/our story of a tour of duty in Iraq. I have Tommi’s permission to write the story for both of us, which I do as much for release as for record. Tommi is reading along and will comment from time to time. I expect to find her version/corrections/additions a fascinating aspect of the telling about to unfold. It may be of interest to mention that her brother, Abe – himself a National Guardsman, might also be persuaded to join the conversation along the way, adding a perspective outside the reach of either Tommi or me. Look for more frequent postings, the first of them tomorrow, as I catch you up to the beginnings. Until then…