Love and Laundry

What happens to a family when both parents are off serving their country? It does happen, as the Jamieson family of Virginia can attest. Christina Jamieson is on a fifteen-month deployment, stationed in Bahrain until next summer, and her husband, Ray, is currently assigned out-of-state with the Defense Department. In her article, “Four Families Serve a Military Duty,” journalist Cortney Langley describes the solution the Jamiesons managed to work out for their four children.

The family of Katie Rauschwarg, tenth-grader Coral Jamieson’s best friend, has taken Coral in for fifteen months. The Rauschwargs wanted to take all four children , but since they have four of their own and one bathroom, mom Michele Rauchwarg says with good humor, “I could not do that to a good friend!”  Michele and Christina became friends as lunch duty volunteers at a local school, an example of how helping others can benefit oneself in unusual and unimaginable ways. 

Thirteen-year-old R.J. Jamieson is also living with his best friend, Mark Cavazos. Twin 9-year-olds Chase and Pierce Jamieson are living at home with Ray’s mother, Mischelle Jamieson, who came from Orlando to care for them and the family dog. A fourth couple, Robin and Mark Gardner, also are on board to help out in whatever way is needed.  The family keeps in contact through Skype, e-mail, text, Facebook, chat programs, telephone and “even snail mailing.”

Michele, Diana, and Robin have become good friends, advising each other and comparing notes.  Discipline was difficult at first because different families have different expectations, but the Jamieson children are now treated like any other member of their temporary family. 

“Some people judge Christina poorly for being in the service, as if she’s betraying her family,” author Langley says. “But people don’t judge military fathers by the same standard.”

“The difference with Michele, Diane and Robin,” Christina Jamieson told Langley on a recent leave at home with her family, “is that they never made me feel less of a mother, always had the standing-by-to-help attitude and even helped when I never even asked....They love my children as if they were their own.” 

After eighteen years of service, Christina plans to retire soon and go to law school. “I love my country so very much, I love my family so much and I love these families so much, and with the help of my ‘community families,’ there is the right balance to make it all work,” she says. “Even though their parents are not at their sides, my kids know they are loved because the right people are in their lives.”  The photo from the Virginia Gazette is of the Jamiesons and their extended "community family."

What are the biggest challenges? “Laundry,” Grandmother Mischelle Jamieson says with a smile.