"It's funny, for no reason, just say the wrong thing to me and the tears come."

01:00 AM EST on Sunday, December 25, 2005

BY JENNIFER LEVITZ
Journal Staff Writer

On a typical Christmas Eve, Charlene and Nelson Reynolds, husband and wife, and best friends, for 33 years, would have gone to a friend's annual Christmas party.

But yesterday was no typical Christmas Eve. Nelson, a burly dispatcher for the Pawtucket Water Department who ends his conversations with the phrase "stay safe," is in Iraq -- a 52-year-old master sergeant with the Rhode Island National Guard's 43rd Military Police Brigade.

So Charlene turned down the invitation to the annual Christmas Eve party. Instead, she planned to put on her pajamas, watch It's a Wonderful Life, eat junk food and have a beer and maybe a cry -- alone in the couple's raised ranch in Pawtucket.

It's not that Charlene Reynolds, also 52, is depressed. In fact, her natural inclination is toward joy and she lets it out often with a warm, throaty laugh. She tells funny stories about Nelson, and lets it be known that he's "one of the few people in the world who loves fruitcake."

But as a military spouse, who is missing her husband through his second deployment, she's come to know her vulnerabilities and her triggers, particularly during the holidays. "It's funny," she says, "for no reason, just say the wrong thing to me and the tears come."

Then, she'll find herself trying to continue the conversation without letting anyone know she's on the verge of breaking down, because after all, it's Christmas.

"It's almost like you try to be up and happy because everyone is," she says.

Staying home alone on Christmas Eve, she says, would take the pressure off: "If I want to be sad, I can. If I don't, I won't, but it gives me that opportunity to get it off my chest."

Throughout Rhode Island, many military families can probably relate to fragile emotions these days. Some 450 men and women from the state are deployed overseas with the National Guard. It's a tough time for soldiers as well as families here in Rhode Island, says Lt. Col. Michael M. McNamara, spokesman for the Rhode Island National Guard. At a time dominated by friends and relatives, military families "have a major hole," he says, and not only are sons, daughters, husbands and wives gone, but they are in a dangerous situation at war.

At the same time that the families have nagging fears about safety, he says, they have the added stress of trying to put on a good face for Christmas and of taking care of the holidays for the rest of the family.

Michael Walker, 43, of Newport, admits that he is mostly going through the motions of being merry so he can give a semblance of a normal Christmas to his two sons, ages 5 and 7. His wife, and the boys' mother, Staff Sgt. Emma Walker, 33, was deployed with the 43rd Military Police Brigade in August.

"I'm trying to put on a good show of it," he says. "The boys are going to be terribly spoiled this year."

"It's just not the same without Emma."

He finds that he's changed from last Christmas to this one. When his wife deployed, Walker was working seven days a week at Eastern Ice in Newport and usually got home as his boys were going to bed.

In fact, when his wife left for Iraq, Walker felt sorry for himself. He wondered how he could manage as a single parent. And surely, it hasn't been easy. "I'm lonely," he says. "Sometimes I just can't wait to get to work and have some adult interaction."

But he's realized that the deployment is probably hardest for his boys and for his wife. It struck him, for instance, when he opened their box of Christmas ornaments of how much she is missing. Each ornament seemed to represent a slice of time, a trip the couple had taken together or a crafts project done by the boys. He realized they'd be making more memories this year, but that "she's not there to enjoy it with us."

Stacy Viens, family program coordinator for the Rhode Island Family Assistance Center run by the National Guard, says many military families are actually veering from their typical family traditions, which are fraught with reminders.

The old advice, says Viens, was "don't do anything different." But many families find that their treasured holiday routine is painful while relatives are away at war. "Something out of the ordinary, that's what we suggested our families do," she says.

Viens knows the benefits of this advice personally. Last year, feeling down about her husband being deployed, Viens and her daughter went to Florida at Christmas. She knows of military families that are going on cruises this Christmas or to the mountains instead of staying at home.

Patty Burdick, whose husband, Sgt. Thomas Burdick, is in Iraq with the 43rd, has tried to maintain routines, but says Christmas is turning out to be much more low-key this year. She and her husband have triplets, who are in kindergarten.

She went easy on the decorations this year, mainly because she wasn't physically able to string all the usual lights up on the family's white ranch. Her children were upset, but she explained, "Dad's the electrician, mom can't really do that."

Her social plans are simpler, partly because her social circle changed when her husband left. This is his second deployment. She finds, for instance, that she doesn't get invitations from other couples as much.

"I'm not a couple, you know what I mean?" she says.

On the other hand, her annual Christmas Yankee Swap gathering with six girlfriends was never as poignant as it was last Tuesday. And she invited one friend, a new widow, to visit yesterday for Christmas Eve. Today, Burdick and her children plan to stay home. She didn't want to come home to an empty house tonight, and also she wants her husband in Iraq to be able to picture his family at home.

"I'm finding out that I'm a stronger person than I ever thought I could be," she says. "But I'm realizing that my life is not the same without him here. It's not worse or better, but I'm part of a whole. I'm not whole right now because he's not here. I'm missing part of the puzzle."