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Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Father’s Day has special meaning for Canton man back from Iraq
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Frank Niemeir/AJC
Jeremy Mays holds daughter Lilian, 1, at his home in Canton on Friday, while his wife, April, holds daughter, Kathleen, 2.
Two days after his second child, Lilian, was born, National Guardsman Jeremy Mays landed not far from Fallujah with the rest of the 48th Brigade Combat Team.
As he entered the so-called Triangle of Death in central Iraq, his wife, April, emerged from a different sort of peril, surviving a high-risk pregnancy marred by gestational diabetes, gestational asthma and toxemia. As she was giving birth — five weeks ahead of schedule — her heart stopped on the delivery table.
She is fully recovered now. Their 14-month-old daughter is healthy as well.
“It was very frustrating, not being able to be there for my wife,” said Mays, a 25-year-old Canton man.
His repeated requests for leave were denied when he was in Iraq, but he made it home in time to spend Father’s Day with his family this Sunday.
He never knew the full extent of his wife’s maladies during her pregnancy. As the daughter of a career Air Force officer, she was well-versed in the standard operating procedure of a military wife.
“I learned from my mother to say, ‘Everything’s fine, honey,’ ” said April Mays, 23.
She works for the Bartow County Department of Family and Children’s Services as she pursues a psychology degree from Kennesaw State University.
“We’d talk about every day. It was unbearable. But I had to be at my happy place. There was no crying on the phone,” she said.
Nor on the battlefield. Knowing his mind was elsewhere, his commanding officers restricted Mays to the base, where he was assigned guard duty.
Mays found solace from fellow soldiers and an unlikely friend, a local Shiite named Mohammed who worked at the base cafeteria.
“I’d give him things, like pants and shoes,” Mays said. “He had been through so much. His first wife had been killed by Saddam, but he had the strength to go on.
“It was helpful for me to remember that there’s always someone worse off than yourself.
“I had to hunker down and be the rock for my wife,” said Mays, currently in training to become a law enforcement officer in DeKalb County. “Whenever we’d talk, I’d say the same thing: ‘Everything’s fine, don’t worry.’ “
It was an awkward dance for the couple, forced into conversations peppered with necessary white lies on both ends. Even now — two months since his return — they’re adjusting to having each other back in their lives.
Both agree that their five-year marriage is stronger than ever.
“He’s a totally different person now, a lot more serious,” April Mays said. “He thinks about things before he says it.”
As a father, however, nothing has changed.
“Jeremy was always a great dad,” she said as Kathleen, their 2 1/2-year-old, sat in her father’s lap. “And Lilian and Kathleen are total daddy’s girls.”
Father’s Day holds special significance for Mays, who remembers little about what he was doing this time last year.
“Probably walking out of the tent, going to guard duty,” he said. “Holidays mean a lot more now than they ever did.”
