In our family, we are now have the surviving 4th generation of CF children. My dad was the son of a Royal Marine who during the war, was a POW in Burma. My dad didn't hear from his father from 1941 until 1945 when the camps were liberated. Before my granpa left for the far east, he told my dad to look for pennies on the street and when he saw one, he was to pick it up and know that was a signal that his dad was thinking about him. By the time my granpa got home, my dad had a whole jar of pennies near his bed and when he missed his father, he'd just look at all the pennies and know his dad was thinking about them. (my grandma told me years later that with all the shortages during the war, that sometimes she'd have to resort to dropping a penny or two outside the close so my dad would find them.) My mom's dad was an RCHA who also was gone during the war and it was jusr expected back then for the kids to deal with it.
When my dad joined the Navy, he used to sail from Jan until Nov every year. Back in those days, all we had were letters, a monthly telegram and the odd phone call when they hit port. My dad introduced the penny to his children and we each have a jar of pennies and coins by the time he got back. Once I found a ten dollar bill on my birthday and boy, did that make me feel special! (mom carefully placed it for me to find - but hey I was 8.) My dad would also speak to my teachers before he left and he'd get copies of all our school assignments to take with him. When he did call, my mom would be waiting patiently to speak to her husband as he went through each of his children's homework questions with each child. Sometimes my mom would only get a few seconds to speak to dad before the call was over but for us kids, the call meant everything. When I was very little, I used to think my dad was magical as he always knew what we were doing in school before we told him. We would never see the ship, plane or train leave, but we'd always be there to welcome my dad home. My mom felt that the goodbyes were too hard on the kids and I tend to agree with her. The welcome homes were always such fun. We'd make cakes, and cook like it was Christmas, all the relatives would come over (they'd end up taking us kids home with them so my parents could have their own time alone).
When it came to my own kid, there was a service couple in the works now instead of just one parent. We had to work extra hard at smoothing things for the kid. I introduced the penny idea as well, and once again there were always jars of pennies when we each got home. I did the homework calls just as my dad did, we went armed with lots of story time stories to read over the phone (in our case it was recite). When hubs was away, we'd always pick one spectacular place to visit once a week whether it be the shoreline at sunset, a forest, a farm, castles, or chalk drawing. We felt it was important for the kid to experience good stuff during a deployment or overseas posting. It also gave the kid something to be excited about when she got her phone call or wrote her letter. If you task the kid now what they remember about deployments, they remember the trips and outings.
Now we have grandchildren who have just said goodbye to dad as his prepares to do a NATO sail. Mom is also a CF member. Before dad left, we made a special jar to collect the pennies. So far, they have found a penny for every day daddy has been gone. They know that dad was thinking about them and while finding the penny, they stopped and thought about daddy.
There an excellent book out called," A Paper Hug" which was written by an American service mom/grandmother. We also used the idea of making and giving the grandkid's daddy a paper hug to take with him. He did one up too. It's a tracing of the person's hands tied onto a ribbon and when you are missing the person, you have a paper hug. (it has to be supervised because of the ribbon for smaller kids).
The key, I think in my family that we discovered on being able to cope with deployments etc, is that deployments are the norm. We don't look at them as being unusual or different but rather as just part of our lives. Now I have to admit that in our family, we've had a bucket load of experience being passed down but I can honestly say, that I don't have any angst with my dad being gone so much, my kid with me and hopefully we won't with the grandkids.
