Connection looks different during deployments

The connection we build as a family through deployments, courses and periods of separation has grown and changed with every season and probably always will.

No period of distance has ever been the same. And if there is one thing I have learnt as a Defence family, it is that our expectations for connection can change just as quickly as the circumstances around us.

We have had to learn to trust, support and stay connected in so many different ways. We have found strengths in places we never expected to find them, and learnt that sometimes, connection doesn't look anything like you imagined it would.

Our personal journey of finding connection even through distance started when Cole was born.

Six months later, my husband was sent to Sydney for a course. We were living in Brisbane at the time.

Sydney.

Interstate.

No field exercise. No deployment. No overseas posting.

Just a course. For four months.

So naturally, my expectations for staying connected were pretty high.

We had talked about what it would look like before he left, as missing Cole's milestones between 6 and 10 months old was not something we wanted dad to miss out on. We imagined family dinners together over video calls, regular phone calls and making the most of the fact that he was only interstate.

It sounded manageable.

Except, as is often the case with Defence life, things didn't quite go to plan.

My husband was given a room with little to no reception and when we did manage to get a call through, he would be propped up against the window ledge at some strange angle, desperately trying to find enough reception for us to actually hear each other.

The call would cut in and out.

The time difference between our schedules meant that family dinner never lined up.

He was busy with his course, working out and spending time with the people around him. I was trying to be mindful of that too. While I had many moments of feeling resentful, I didn't want to interrupt. I wanted him to be present where he was and make the most of the experience.

But it was hard.

And if I'm being completely honest, that was one of my hardest seasons of separation.

I think I was struggling more than I realised at the time, and I believe I was experiencing postnatal depression but never wanted to admit out loud I wasn’t coping. I’m a defence wife, I should be strong enough for this right? It wasn’t until my husband suggested I call Open Arms did I start prioritising myself.

Looking back now, I wish I had asked for help sooner. 

That is something I can acknowledge now with a little more kindness towards the woman I was then.

But that season wasn't all hard.

My husband did absolutely everything he could to support me and stay connected with our family during that time. I know it must have been so hard for him, also seeing me struggle and wanting to help and be there for me in person but we started making small changes to stay connected and supported as a family.

We had two completely spontaneous flights home, which were some of the best surprises for the children.

We started having 5am virtual coffee dates before the kids were awake which we still do now even together.

On weekends when he had the kids, he would find a spot under a tree where he knew he could get reception and sit there just to call us without the interruptions around him.

He sent flowers, hid treats for the kids to find if he came home and they weren’t there.

And then there was the night I'll never forget

The kids and I were sitting around the dinner table when music suddenly started playing through our Google speaker.

At first, I was confused, then I realised.......he had sent us a song.

He couldn't be at our dinner table physically. He couldn't even reliably be there through a video call.

But somehow, he had found another way to turn up.

And that feeling of surprise and love, all bundled up in a song, has stayed with me.

He started doing it more often. Somehow, he started slipping into our family dinners through music. He wasn't sitting at the table, but he was there.

Songs from our wedding, songs he had played with the kids, his favourites and sometimes songs with lyrics that felt like a message meant just for us.

Connection looked different.

And maybe that is one of the biggest things our years as a Defence family have taught me.

Connection doesn't always look like a phone call. It doesn't always look like a video chat or a perfectly timed family dinner. Or even go to plan.

Sometimes it is a song. 

Sometimes it is a handwritten note. 

Sometimes it is a photograph, a message, a flower delivery or a five-minute conversation squeezed into a busy day.

Sometimes it is simply knowing that someone is thinking about you or stepping outside and looking at the stars... something you both share in that moment.

And sometimes, connection means accepting that the way you imagined staying connected isn't going to work this time, and being willing to find another way.

Every separation has taught us something different.

Our needs have changed.

Our children have grown.

Our circumstances have changed.

And our expectations have changed with them.

What worked for us in one season hasn't necessarily worked in the next.

But underneath all of those changes, one thing has remained the same.

The love.

There are seasons where the distance feels manageable, and there are seasons where it feels incredibly heavy.

There are days when you feel like you've got this, and days when you wonder how you're going to get through another night, another weekend, another bedtime without them.

But I've learnt that connection during deployment isn't about finding one perfect way to stay close.

It's about continuing to find each other.

Again and again.

In whatever way you can.

And for our family, those little moments of connection have become some of the memories I treasure most.

Because even when he couldn't physically be there, he was always finding ways to remind us that he was still part of our family, still thinking of us, still loving us, and still showing up.

Connection looks different for every Defence family.

And it looks different in every season.

But when the love is strong, you find ways to carry it across the distance.

Charmaine x

Flowers sent by my husband during deployments - our hardest year yet @charmaine.beutel