Appreciation.

I've mentioned some of my neighbors and friends in past posts, but this one is a special highlight on my neighbor Danielle and her family. Danielle and I became fast friends shortly after her husband Luke deployed, and have come a long way since then. Even though our friendship without Luke (because he was my friend first) started after I watched Bulma (their cat) for six weeks, I feel I can say that Dani is one of my best friends in life. 

It's so weird to look back on who I was when I met her and Liam (their son), to who I am now. I remember conversations about my fear of children, and then having a disgruntled-but happy-6 month old Liam pushed into my arms. I remember the first time I held him without being asked to. I remember thinking to myself that if I were a new mom, with my husband deployed far away that I would have never gotten through it... Danielle, if you didn't know her, would seem shy and quiet like a fly on the wall. She has this almost angelic presence that kinda just calms you... I guess she still is all of those things, but after looking back on yesterday- she is so much more. 

My friend has an incredible devotion to her family. I've been on a military base long enough to see people get separated by deployments and hear about break-downs and angry rants or sad rants on Facebook about being away from their significant other.. but I haven't heard much from her. I asked her early on why she never cried (at least in front of me), or moped, or broke plates at Luke being gone... and her response was a shrug as she told me that she just wanted to focus on her son. She's been that way this entire deployment and it's through those moments that I've been able to see how strong she is. 

Yesterday, Danielle and Luke were reunited after a year of not being together. It was amazing to see, and I took some photos of the event and with her permission, I'm sharing them here. 

I wish that all of you could know how much this family has meant to me and how much I've changed just by knowing them.  I have talked about missing home a lot in earlier posts, but since knowing the Cordell's it's gotten less and less sad. They've been my home away from home with a house I feel completely comfortable walking into. I'm so thankful that Luke got home safe, and that they are all together again and I am even more thankful for being able to share that time with Danielle to get a first hand grasp on how to properly handle a deployment.