Building Spaceships

I just got home from the grocery store on base where I watched the gentleman in front of me, perhaps late 30's buy kitty litter and a young boy's lego set. Simple enough purchases, nothing to think twice about on any other tonight, but tonight, it hit a sentimental nerve within my heart. Perhaps its because Mike's gone and I miss him terribly but for whatever reason those purchases, specifically the second one, really got me thinking. At any other store a Target, Kmart, Walmart, I probably wouldnt even look at the items, much less think about the sentiments behind them, but here I stood, behind a man that I didnt know, who was most likely in whatever capacity a member of the United States Navy. Judging by his appearance, he looked like he was old enough to have served at least a 10 year term. Judging by the lego set, the boy he was buying it for couldnt have been more than 9 or 10. Now I know I am making a lot of assumptions here, like if it was for his child, how long he was in the Navy etc, but just humor me. In Mike's almost 3.5 year term so far, he has been deployed over 15 months, not even including workups like the one he is gone on now(which very well could add up to another 5 or 6 months). Thats only a 3.5 year term. Assuming this man has been in for 10, he might have seen anywhere from 15 months, to three years of deployments depending on his tour of duty. How many birthdays, Christmases, Easters, Halloweens, School Plays, Summer Vacations, Bruised Knees and First Times has this man missed over the years? How many times has he brought home items from a deployment, from far away places for his little boy, games and knicknacks, ball caps and books, to show him how much he missed him while he was gone. All the while the dad picturing giving those items to the boy that he left so many months ago, but only to be giving them to a taller, more grown up child, with whom he now has to make up for so much lost time... Did this man just get home from a deployment? Is he going to go home and surprise his little boy with those legos and build the ships together with him? Is it a surprise for tomorrow morning? Are they even going to get the chance to work on it together? I've often wondered when walking through the short aisles of the base store, why there is such a large toy section, but tonight showed me why. It's for mommies and daddies, coming home to their children from so many months away, to buy something to put a smile on their face, perhaps something to work on with them, to spend quality and precious, priceless time with them that they have for so long missed while being abroad. To me it may just be a toy section, but to them it's an opportunity, a chance to catch up on all the time they have missed, and to enjoy the all too far and few between moments they have with their children while they are still children, because one deployment, they will come home, and they will be all grown up... So wherever that little boy and his daddy are tonight, whatever they are doing, whether it be today, tomorrow, or sometime in the future, I hope they build that lego spaceship together, but more importantly, I hope they enjoy building that memory together, and that they store it in a safe place in their minds and hearts, so that next time that little boy's daddy has to go away, all they have to do is close their eyes and go back to a time when they didnt have to be big and strong through deployments, when they just got to be, a daddy and his son...