God truly sent me an angel when I connected with Jess at her first book club with our officer spouse group. And by connected, I basically messaged her and said please be my friend. At the time, she had recently moved and her husband was here, but Brian was gone. I met her husband once, then he left, and we were both flying solo together. In fact, so much together, that someone reading my blog recently thought we were married. Ha. Anyway, Brian came home, but with his schedule we still hang out a lot, and now finally her husband came home!
Their ships are huge and they have so much more personnel. This was my first real homecoming experience, ours wasn’t “official” because it wasn’t an official deployment. But, there was a lot of similarities… going to Missing Man to watch them pull in. Shedding some tears (I think I did more than she did!). Heading to the docks to wait for unloading. I took the day off so I could photograph.
They had a live band playing, a lot of press, the first kisses… Her husband is up on that deck.
I was happy to be there to grab pictures of them reuniting! Ahh here I am crying again.
When you go through such a long time with someone while their husband is gone it just makes you so emotional when you get to see them so happy to have their husband back… it’s such an incredible experience and so unique to military life. I took the day off to go spend capturing the moments for them as best I could. I almost tripped over a sailor’s bag trying to photograph… it’s a crazy day and stuff and people are strewn all over! Thankfully I didn’t faceplant.
Jess was so kind as to help another officer find an apartment while he was gone. I don’t know how single sailors manage their lives, honestly.
Fun fact, it was really hard for her to figure out who her husband was on the boat. They all look so similar!! And to top it off they’re in masks! But we eventually figured it out.
Here’s to more happy reunions and safe returns.
