Preparing to Shift Colors

The emotions with heading out to meet my ship are wide and varied for me. I am very excited to be the ship's chaplain. I am very excited to be going to a ship again after a short 22 year hiatus. I am very excited about the friendships that will develop and the ports I will get to visit. YET – I do not look forward to leaving my Princess and the Madre behind. In 18 years of marriage we have spent a few weeks here and there apart, but never a deployment. Both of us are confident that our relationship is strong enough to handle it with ease, but we still don't look forward to this part.

My relationship with my Princess is significantly different. She is only 5, and only superficially understands what is going to happen in a couple of days. Yesterday morning, I took her to breakfast at the club and explained to her that on Saturday I fly out to meet my ship. This will not be like previous times that I have been separated from her; it will be much longer. It was very emotional for her to hear this. I then shared with my Princess a Mizpah necklace. It has become a permanent fixture around her neck – until this evening.

This evening, the Princess and Madre stopped by the playground to play for a few minutes on their way back to the Lodge. Everything was going well until it was time to come back to the room, and the Princess told Madre that she could not find her necklace. Madre called me to get me to bring a flashlight since Princess lost the necklace somewhere in the sand. I grabbed my flashlight and headed out. About the time I arrived Madre was putting the necklace back on the Princess's necklace. Turns out, the Princess was continuing to live out her fantasies surrounding pirates and had buried her necklace in the sand as a treasure under the 'X'. Our Princess was completely beside herself, but was also emotional about finding her necklace. I think her days of burying jewelry are now over.