Coping with Family Separation - One person joins, but the whole family serves
We have lived and breathed Ocean Rowing for over four years – Callum committed to rowing in the 2019 race the same week we found out I was expecting our second child. We knew that the new baby would be less than six months old when he left for more than two months. Somehow that didn’t seem like a big deal given that he’d spent most of our first daughter’s life living away, or under the sea for months at a time. Having a submariner in the family warps your concept of what a ‘big deal’ is.
The morning after Callum left, I took our two daughters to nursery and school and opened the door to be confronted by a strong, fishy aroma - our dog had managed to open a can of mackerel and spread it over our rug. On day 2, our youngest daughter appeared next to my bed, covered in chicken pox. By Day 3 I was fully expecting to open the front door to a plague of locusts. And so it goes when we’re at the beginning of a patrol – it doesn’t seem to matter whether they’re under the sea or on top of it – the universe conspires to make things as stressful as possible.
Patrols, and separations over Christmas are certainly harder than at other times of year – though I’m glad that this time we don’t have the anxiety of waiting for a last-minute change to his leave or return date from sea. When it’s a submarine patrol, we have no notice of the specific moment he’ll leave – very few people on board know the exact details of when the boat will depart, and so we have multiple goodbye phone calls. Inevitably, he’ll end up leaving after we’ve had a row because his call is in the middle of bedtime, or when I’ve told him a dull local gossip story and forgotten to tell him I love him as I hang up. And then, months later, we get 24 hours’ notice of his return, leaving us in limbo for upwards of 8 weeks as we wait for the postman to deliver a letter announcing his return. It’s a lonely time - we’re sworn to secrecy as sharing any information puts the boat and its crew at risk and delays their homecoming.
Separation during the Atlantic Challenge is very different – we can follow him on the YB Races app as soon as the race starts, and my Mum bought us a gigantic map so we can move a pencil drawn boat along as they progress across the ocean. The visual image of Daddy and his friends rowing is much easier for a three- or six-year-old to understand, and when they ask me why he’s got to do it – it’s much easier to explain than the strategy of the Continuous At Sea Deterrent. We can tell people that he’s going, and that he’s gone, and when he’s returning – there’s no need for the high level of secrecy that we must follow when he’s attached to a Submarine.
We will have some contact during the race – maybe even some photos this time – to give Callum news from home, tell him we love him, and hear how the team are doing. That doesn’t happen on a submarine. I can send short, 120 word messages once a week that are read by multiple people before Callum can read them – to ensure that the content isn’t too exciting, or too worrying to distract him from his work. We don’t hear anything back from him, I have no idea where he is, or how he’s feeling. And Callum knows that he’s only getting a bland, filtered version of reality – should someone at home be very ill, or even die – he won’t know until he gets off the boat. That first phone call when he gets on land is filled with excitement, but also plenty of anxiety waiting to hear that everyone is safe and well. So much time passes that I forget some of the important bits, weeks pass before I remember to tell him about the night I spent in A&E, or that the dog ate something unfortunate and needed a check-up while he was gone.
Preparation for a patrol, or the race is like a marathon – it starts months and years in advance, so I’ve already been juggling more than my usual share as he gets in his physical preparation and the many many training courses – just like a submarine patrol. And, like clockwork, the children perfectly time their gut punching “I feel sad because I really miss Daddy” chats for the end of the day when my energy and patience levels are at their lowest.
The next patrol will be the first one that both our daughters are old enough to be aware, without having the maturity to understand it. I have no idea how I’ll explain to them that I really don’t have any idea when Daddy will be home, or where he is. When you’re three years old, 8 weeks may as well be 800 years. Being part of a Submariner family is bound to make our daughters more resilient, and resourceful than they’d otherwise be – I know I am much better in a crisis and am far more independent and self-sufficient than I would be otherwise. On good days, I see that as a great opportunity that will set us all up for whatever life throws at us. On bad days I feel incredibly guilty, especially when I am really failing at being both Mum and Dad and Good Cop and Bad Cop.
The work that HMS Oardacious funds support via The Submarine Family, and Never Such Innocence is so important for helping parents like us, support and explain to their children why they’re different, how to cope with separation, and to give them a vocabulary to explain how their feeling to us, their friends, and their teachers.
As our children get older, the questions will change, but my ability to answer them will stay much the same – pretty useless. We will continue to rely on our village - friends who turn up to fix broken boilers and sockets, my Mum who cheerfully responds to endless, panicked phone calls because I’ve mistimed pick up and need her to run and grab a child from nursery or after school club, or because I’ve forgotten I need help with bedtime (again) so I can do a work call. Callum’s career affects us all, it impacts every decision we make and extends to our wider family and circle of friends. But we will continue to remember, and look forward to our next reunion, without the fanfare and the live streaming of Antigua, though I imagine we’ll keep back a little rum if we can.
After the celebration, we go through the same motions, and the same rows, every time. I should create bingo cards. There’s the “WHERE HAVE YOU PUT ALL MY STUFF” – because I have a ritual of effectively moving Callum’s stuff into cupboards, the shed and the loft almost before his car has left the drive. Then we do the dance of “I’ve had a harder time than you” – which is particularly difficult for Callum to win when he can’t tell me why his was worse, since everything is classified, even to his wife. And finally, my personal favourite “you’re in charge of our nuclear arsenal and yet you can’t do… [insert basic task here].’
Like a marathon, the elation when you finally get to the finish is almost addictive. I can remember every single return from patrol, it’s burned in as a core memory. Waiting impatiently outside a naval base, for a much skinnier Callum to stroll out, carrying an enormous kit bag – it’s a Hollywood moment. At the end of the Atlantic Challenge in 2020, for the first time we got to live that with our family and friends as the reunion was live streamed across the world, with flares, and champagne, and pina coladas. Returning from isolation and separation is a bumpy ride, but it’s markedly more palatable when you’re doing it in Antigua, rather than being stood in a carpark with a man who smells like he’s rolled in diesel after not showering for 6 months. Which is why, when Callum told me he was doing it again – I didn’t even hesitate in telling him he had my full support.
