What is fair? At some point in your life, I'm sure you have asked yourself this question. I'm sure in some sense over some matter you have said 'it wasn't fair.' It wasn't fair that Susy made the cheer leading squad because her Daddy made a huge donation to the school's athletic department. It wasn't fair that Jan left the hospital after giving birth to her third child in size 3 jeans. Or maybe it wasn't fair that you had to come in to work on your day off, because John called in sick when you knew in fact that he was out partying the night before. Whatever the situation, I think its safe to assume that there has been a time in your life when you felt it wasn't fair.
Life isn't fair. That's a conclusion that most of us come to at a young age. I remember when my sister got a cell phone before me. And the time that my husband deployed just a couple months before our first child was born... When my dad died the week of my twelfth birthday... Or finding out that I was adopted.... Getting cut off on the interstate... Missing a huge sale! I'd murmur under my breath how unfair it was, but I'd always move on. I'd get over it, because I understood sometimes life just isn't fair.
Different people have different situations. Different opportunities based on their upbringing and the parental influence. Different people have different outcomes from the same experiences. It's not something you can balance. It's just that life deals people different cards. God has different plans for each individual.
Today, another soldier my husband works with said to me that it wasn't fair. She said it's not fair for my husband to get excused from a field op just because he has a sick son. That he signed up to be a soldier and that this was his job and he should not get special treatment. In fact, she said he WOULD NOT get special treatment, because it was not fair.
I don't think three words have ever hurt me so bad my entire life as the three words she spoke when she said "it's not fair."
She's right in a sense, it's not fair that she has to go to the field and miss spending time with her kids while my husband may not have to. They both signed the same contract, took the same oath, so why should my husband get special treatment. I completely get where she and other soldiers who may feel the same way are coming from, because I remember all the times in my life that I thought something wasn't fair. But just because something is not fair doesn't mean it's not right.
My sister got a cell phone before me in high school, because she went out every Friday night. She hung out with her friends, while I stayed home and studied. I had no use for a phone, but she did. My husband deployed, because it was his job. It sucked giving birth alone, but it was what was right, because my husband had taking a vow to serve his country. That jerk who cut you off on the interstate, he may have a had a wife in the passenger seat in labor or a parent having a heart attack and he was rushing to the ER.
My husband should get out of field ops and deploying, because it is what's right! It may not be fair to you or to his other co workers, but you know what's not fair to him... His son is going to die in his lifetime. Something no parent should ever have to deal with. He has to learn about medication doses, hypo- allergenic diets, how to give supplemental oxygen, to deep suction a baby. He has to lay awake at night scared to death that tomorrow may be his last day with his son. He has to make decisions about what is a quality of life for his child, has to hear things like terminal, hospice, DNR.
And you know what, he would trade that burden for a hundred nights in the field or ten years in Iraq. He would give anything to be the guy in the field setting up tents, shooting his M16, if it meant he didn't have to be the guy who had to watch his baby get sicker and sicker.
I am not asking for your sympathy. I just want people to understand that life isn't fair. We don't get to pick God's plan for us and we shouldn't be so quick to judge others, to envy any special treatment they may receive or criticize them for expecting help. Everyone's situation is different. Everyone is facing different struggles.
I just want to say that this person who said this has no right to judge! After Wendy was born, my husband only went to work on Monday mornings- we spent the rest of the time at the hospital. After she came home, he had a note saying if/when I called and needed him home, he needed to come immediately, and his fellow soldiers understood. When everyone left for JRTC in April, my husband stayed behind. No one complained. Because honestly, no one wanted to trade places with him! No one wanted to be able to miss work because they had a sick child! I guarantee you, that just like your husband, mine would have loved to have been spending time at work instead of coming home to a SN child and worrying about her every second he was away. I agree, life is not fair. It’s not fair that our husbands could miss work when others had to go, but it’s also not fair that we have to go through the struggles we do with our children. It’s not fair that we have to see them suffer. So this person that has a problem with it, can shove her opinion of what’s not fair where the sun don’t shine.
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