Cynthia D

My wife is my hero. Over the past seventeen years, including the final decade of my career as a Navy SEAL, she has tirelessly carried the far greater burden in our family.

Cindy is a living example of whole-soul sacrifice. She has earned two Masters' Degrees, built a teaching career, raised three amazing children, provided for her disabled mother's needs, often managed our household alone, and always been there for her dear friends.

A former runway model and actor in feature films, she could have rested on her looks. That's not Cindy’s way.

She transitioned from teaching Information Systems at our university to help special needs children at the high school level. Now she has moved again, into the hospital system, because she needs to love those most desperate, troubled kids who have hit rock bottom and for whom there is nowhere else to go.

Cindy has had pens, books, and desks thrown at her, and has even been thrown against the wall herself...it doesn't matter. She won't quit. She loves every broken one of them without exception, and through this ferocious perseverance has changed lives nobody else wanted. In just one case, she got through to a boy with "selective mutism". Outside of the home he was clinically incapable of speaking. Now he talks. He talks to Cindy.

At church, she volunteers in the one-on-one autistic child program, offering exhausted parents a respite for two precious hours a week. Her reward has been clawed forearms, pulled hair, and spirited chases down the hall after reluctant pupils.

Cindy can't resist a stray. I have to keep buying bigger houses to handle our growing menagerie of six dogs and numerous cats and critters. She opens her heart to human strays, too. Over the years we have taken in young people from abusive or homeless families.

Whenever I come up with another hare-brained business scheme she offers her opinion, counsels restraint, and supports me in my choice. Whenever I tell her I'm going away to war again for a few weeks or a few months, SHE reassures ME! She tells me not to worry, that they'll be fine until I get the job done and come home.

We've survived financial losses that we thought would destroy our family. We've survived personal losses that every parent dreads. During one of these she nearly died from internal bleeding.
It doesn't matter. She won't quit.

She accomplishes all of this during seventeen years in which I have been deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and dozens of other nations, both with the Navy and as a security consultant. I have literally been away more years than I've been home.

My Teammates and I agree - despite our dangers and difficulties in war and peace, the families waiting at home have a tougher job in carrying on without us no matter what. We have some remarkably courageous individuals in today's military...in my opinion, though, Cindy's deep patience and courageous dedication outshine us all.

My wife is my hero.

Submitted by Anonymous

Sacrifice