More often than not, though, those ideas end up taking on a life of their own once I finally dedicate myself to being their conduit to a heartbeat. It’s like—not a birth—but a coming-of-age. And every, single time, that journey through puberty, adolescence, and into adulthood for my stories also spells a coming-of-age for me.
I look around at the dining room and am suddenly viewing echoes of our lives lived within these four walls. Ghost scenes of homework being done at the table. My daughter making cookies for the first time in our kitchen. My favorite people in the whole world joking and bonding…These traces of shared life are too much, and I start sobbing again.
There are days when the noise is too loud—when the talk of new wars, sacrifice, and uncertainty makes even something as simple as a cup of tea with a silly hat-wearing friend feel impossible. And still, we show up. We love. We try. We endure.
Our service members often fight for the “unlovable.” They don’t get the luxury to linger at the top of the hole. They jump and they fight. Maybe that is the approach we need to take with those who are “unlovable” in our lives.
Follow along below to witness the very first VSP Writers’ Retreat. In February 2026, Veteran and active duty military spouses travelled from six different states to create, to bond, to celebrate the beautiful fragility of being broken open.
That night, as I lie in our bed alone, I feel it…the loneliness. The absence of his breathing on the pillow beside me turns the room into a vacuum. The missing warmth of his body, his chest beneath my head, the rhythmic thud of his heartbeat – I’ve forgotten how to live without them.
This feels like deployment. Not just the absence but the underlying worry. It’s always there, always in your throat, behind your eyeballs, shoved under your fingernails.
Denial, it turns out is not just a river in Egypt. It is an ever-present river that twists and turns as it flows around my brain, dampening the desires of foregone dreams.
(Bonus 15/14) Veteran spouse Jeannie Puckett talks about how their lives were changed when her husband, Korean and Vietnam War Hero, COL (RET.) Ralph Puckett Jr., received the Medal of Honor in this final BONUS Stories We Tell: Jeannie Puckett installment from Veteran’s Spouse Project.
(14/14) Veteran spouse Jeannie Puckett reflects on gratitude as she and her husband, Medal of Honor Recipient and Korean and Vietnam War Hero, COL (RET.) Ralph Puckett Jr., navigate through his diagnosis of Parkinson’s in this fourteenth of fourteen Stories We Tell installments from Veteran’s Spouse Project.
(13/14) This poem of grief was written by Veteran spouse Jeannie Puckett the year after she and her husband, Medal of Honor Recipient and Korean and Vietnam War Hero, COL (RET.) Ralph Puckett Jr., lost their daughter, Jean, to cancer in this thirteenth of fourteen Stories We Tell installments from Veteran’s Spouse Project.
Veterans Spouse Project (VSP) is the only nonprofit arts organization in the nation working to give voice to the experiences of military spouses through theatre and creative arts. Learn more about how to share, connect, listen, and create with us in your community.