[ WP ] `` Through river , root , and stone , the distant call of home ... ''

I was always the one in my family who was never really present. I appreciated them and I loved them but maybe I took them for granted. I missed holidays for simple unjustifiable reasons that were never really anything more than me just being lazy or maybe just not knowing how or why to cherish those moments. Those memories, so many, made with my parents and my twin sister for 26 years came to be the source of some serious psychological trauma during my 11 month tour in Afghanistan in 2012. Regret, apologies I could n't deliver, a life I never appreciated with a family who loved me more than I loved them, but not more than I loved myself. 
 Funny thing is they'll tell you how big a heart I have. How I'm so selfless and good-spirited. How I stand up for what's right and fight for the underdog. My sister loves to tell stories about the odd kids in elementary school I used to defend at recess. My mom still talks to the girls I introduce her to about how worried I was about my wife's feelings as I went through the divorce with her, even though i should have hated her for not being there when I needed her. 
 God, war sucks. It's not even the violence that gets to you. It's not the long hours and sore muscles, or the cold monotony that fills you with emptiness between missions. It's that you have so much time to sit and think about everything you left behind and the uncertainty of not knowing if you will see it again, and wishing you could do it all differently but knowing you're stuck on the other side of the world, without any control over your fate other than keeping your weapon clean and your head on a swivel. 
 All of that thinking, led me to realize how much I missed home, How much I missed my family, and how sorry I was that they probably had no idea. Only later I would find out how much they missed me. 
 I remember waking up one morning and reading a letter from my dad. He was mainly talking about a new tractor he bought and there were some pictures included. It was of him and my mom on the tractor, looking like they were just falling in love for the first time in there early fifties. My sister had taken the picture. 
 It seemed as though I was looking at strangers, that I loved with every part of me, and I could n't escape the thought that they probably always felt like it was the three of them. I was always in my own world, doing what I wanted and not worrying about them. And now I could see it-finally, after being taken from my world and placed in a foreign land riddled with war and sand, I could feel how much I'd missed. 
 I called my mom and I told them all on speaker phone that I was sorry and that I loved them and that I did n't want to take life for granted anymore, and I could n't wait to finally come home. There was silence that I knew was probably them being worried and maybe a little shocked-worried mostly I think. 
 I doubt that they thought I was simply `` homesick''
