Today I started getting handshakes and messages from people thanking me for my sacrifices. I try to put the impending deployment out of my mind but with veterans day tomorrow, denial is no longer an option. My husband, partner in crime, and my son's beat friend will be gone for a year. Deployments without children are so different. I never thought this could be so hard. After all, we've done it before. Now I look at the sweet faces of these little boys and my heart shatters for them. Daddy will come home in a year. We know that. All those missed firsts, all of the missed laughs, the missed memories shared, not sharing the joyous as well as the difficult times with him....That's hard on me. Daddy here one day and gone the next, that's impossible to understand at such young ages. We will be grateful for the few months we have left before this deployment, soaking up every moment. But these people who thank me for my sacrifices as the wife of a solider should really be thanking our sons.