If you would please.......

Some of you are probably up already as I write this, at 230 in the morning, getting ready to attack the stores for "Black Friday". I have not yet gone to sleep, as is my normal routine. So if you are going, please be careful, there are always lunatics that will stop at NOTHING to get that gift they just HAVE to have.

I'm going on a little trip later on today, going down to my brother-in-law's house to pick up his car and bring it back home to keep for him while he goes on his fourth deployment to Iraq for a year. I would appreciate everyone keeping him in their thoughts, and maybe offering up a prayer for his safety. The shrew and I will continue to take care of his son and daughter for him while he is gone. They have been with us for several years, ever since his LAST deployment. He has only visited them sporadically in the year and a half or so since he returned from that one, and has not taken them home with him. So they will not really miss him any more than usual, but this means he will really HAVE a reason for not showing up to visit, or for not coming to get them and take them home. I am praying he will return safe and sound, and decide when he gets back that he wants to take them. While I agree with him in some respects that the environment they are in with us may be "better", I firmly believe children should be with their own parents. I understand it would be difficult for him being a single dad, as his ex-wife has no parental rights(hence why the kids are with us), but it's not like he is the only single dad in the Army. There are others, probably in his own unit, and I'm sure if he decided to accept his responsibility as a father, I believe he would find there would be people able to help him and provide support. His daughter, who will turn 5 a few weeks, has for some time now decided she is going to call the wife and I "Mommy and Daddy". Not when he is around fortunately, but I find that disturbing. What else does she have to go on though? We have provided all of the care for her for the greater part of her life. All I'm saying is, a person cannot be considered a parent in a child's eye when they only visit 2 or 3 times a year, and only call on the phone sporadically at best. I'm sure most of you know by now that I have 3 daughters of my own, and I just can't see myself going as long as he does(on purpose) not seeing or talking with his children. They are missing out on so much already not having their own mother around, it's just so unfair to them. Please let him return safe........

The other person who needs your thoughts and prayers is his mother, my mother-in-law. If something were to happen to him, I believe she would literally go insane. As a father, I understand the fear of losing one's child, but I don't have the fear she does, as mine are not yet grown, and are obviously NOT in the military. While she and I don't always get along, and she's a real pain in the ass a lot of the time, I truly love her like she was my own mother; hell, she's done loads more to help me whenever she could, which is more than I can say for my own mother. 

So if you would pray to whatever god you believe in for my brother-in-law's safety, his children, and for my mother-in-law's sanity, I would be forever grateful. Thank you.