Little Soldier Girl “Didn’t Want to Let Go”
Four-year old Paige didn’t want to say goodbye to her daddy before he was shipped off to Iraq.A family photo that shows a little girl beside her father and his fellow soldiers in uniform as they prepare to go to war has resonated well beyond the tight knit Bennethum clan.
Four-year-old Paige Bennethum really, really didn’t want her daddy to go to Iraq.So much so, that when Army Reservist Staff Sgt. Brett Bennethum lined up in formation at his deployment this July, she couldn’t let go.No one had the heart to pull her away.
I don’t have a political comment to make regarding this article… nor any grand agenda for posting the picture. It just tugs at me when I see small children trying to be strong when they can’t understand the possible consequences of a parent going off to war. For this child and many others it’s just a matter of missing mom or dad and not knowing when they will be seen again.
Time flies for us… for adults… but for children it drags on and on into forever and nothing makes it go faster. It’s being stuck in quicksand with the horrors of sinking always looming but never happening. That ever present threat of something wonderful or horrible happening and then feeling like your whole body is being torn apart with anticipation. Telling a child she won’t see her father for a year is like telling an adult they won’t see them for ten years. It just seems so far away… so distant and daunting.
No, I have not had to live this nightmare but it doesn’t take living it to touch on the despair is could bring. My son is still at Basic Training and I await his return calmly. I try not to think of what could happen one day in the future… but I can touch upon the despair and it destroys me.
