legal power over a life

At the time of writing this, I’ve now received my third set of power of attorney papers from Donovan.  By far it is the largest.

Skimming over them, I’ve realized that a) my husband has no idea how to spell my middle name, and b) he considers Rebecca his.  My middle name sounds common as hell.  But the spelling is insane; and French (thanks mom).

The general POA has something new and kinda scary.  It goes on and on about him being disabled, incapacitated, incompetent, a prisoner of war, etc etc etc.  I’ve never done something like this before.  The thought of him getting hurt or dying scares me so much that it keeps me up at night.  The only good thing is that this part of the packet specifically states that if any of this stuff happens, the POA is good for 60 days after that situation is rectified (except the death part.  But I REALLY don’t want to think about that)

The special ones are kind of comical.  I’m already allowed to do some of the things that they are saying I can because I’m his wife.  The military finance one is kind of a moot point – again, Nellis has failed us.  If I want to do ANYTHING with his military finances, I have to drive 3 hours.  Cashing checks for him has never been an issue; we’ve got a joint checking account.

Then there’s the one for taxes, ha ha.  As if I haven’t done his taxes and filed them already…

But even after all the hee hee hee of redundant rights granted by these POA’s, I’m still sobered by the “Durable” part, the fact that they don’t expire if he gets hurt, goes missing, or becomes a POW.  All things that I lose sleep over, that people here that believe they are in the know tell me I shouldn’t worry about.

People, be they military or civilian, refuse to see just how alone we are, how much my husband’s branch has, in effect, abandoned us.  My brother’s marine buddy is convinced that there’s an ombudsman to act as a liaison for the spouses that have been left behind.  What he doesn’t get is that the entire battalion, lock stock and barrel, is stationed overseas.  Our family is a rarity – marooned in the states while the rest of them are safely ensconced in Europe, or safe and supported in a town with family and close friends.  I have no branch spouses to fall back on, and no family.

My closest family member is an 8 hour drive away.  So’s Donovan’s.  The other immediate family member I have left is on the other side of the country.  Donovan’s other parent is a 24 hour drive away.  My birth father is an 8 hour drive, and my mom’s been gone 5 ½ years.

No amount of counseling will “fix” that I haven’t seen my husband since last May and that he’s soon to be in a place where lots of people want him dead.  It won’t fix the fact that my kids think that any man with dark hair is “Daddy” or that they associate the computer monitor with Daddy because of the constant picture show going on.  It won’t help me to stop worrying about him getting “laid off” because of budget cuts that will put us in the same place we were right before he went back in, only now he’ll have all sorts of mental goodies and I’ll have all the hurts of being left behind.