The Miluim Wife

It has been 116 days since my husband left for Miluim.

116 days since we have had normal conversations on what we want to eat for dinner, how his presentation went at work, whose turn it is to walk the dog.

116 days since I’ve woken up next to his lazy body and known he won’t leave me again for what seems like a distant land. One of danger and boredom, of rain and tuna cans, of guard duty and experiences he chooses to lock away.

I am a miluim wife, and I am a lucky one.

My husband sits on the Lebanon border, I do not have young children, and his family provides me a wealth of support.

I am not like my best friend, who got married one month ago and had seven days before seeing her new husband back into Gaza. A honeymoon of radio silence and earsplitting anxiety.

I am not like my cousin who has four young kids and a full-time job. Playing mom and dad, healer and cook, provider and soothsayer.

I am not like the hundreds of women who now wear black and bathe in grief. The eternal Miluim wives.

I am a lucky one.

But I do not feel lucky.

I feel disillusioned and so alone.

I am alone when he is away, and I am alone when he is home. His eyes distant, his embrace cold. They are far away, our loved ones. Trapped in this war even when they lay beside us.

We know this is necessary, and we wear their absence with as much pride as we can muster. But to be a Miluim wife is to be slightly broken at all times.

And it is the burden we must carry.