Fire Wife, Fire Life: The delicate balance of pros and cons of being a firefighter wife

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Fire WifeFire wife, fire life. It is what we do. It is what we signed up for, agreed to, said “I do” to. We are fire wives. The more I get to know the other wives, the more I realize how we are ALL superheroes.

Our men are heroes, and so are we. 

We really do not know anything else if they were ALREADY a firefighter when we married them. And then, there are some of us whose husbands got the job AFTER we married them. And truly it is one and the same…. this is their career. What they do. Who they are. 

The men (and women) work 24 hour shifts in a rotating block schedule. A, B, and C. So that means we are playing single parent for 24 hours. (I imagine this is a lot like being a military wife, yet somehow easier?) This fire life definitely has it’s pros and it’s cons. The cons are that when the kids do something wrong or need to learn a lesson…I have no one else to help me dodge bullets or soothe tears. And I am ALWAYS the bad guy… for 24 hours straight. The positive side of the entire thing is that my daughters and I get in this girl groove…. we have things we do when dad is away. It’s like special mother/daughter time for 24 hours! What other daughter gets that? I know I never did. 😉 

fire lifeLet’s keep it simple. This fire wife life is a delicate balance. Once we find our groove, a natural disaster takes my husband on deployment (or like during hurricane Michael stationed HERE) and then we start all over. I can only imagine this life is similar to military or secret service. I give all of you wives mad props for I sincerely know you give ALOT. And then there are those fire wives who are also nurses that spend long hours doing hospital work (and military wives that are also nurses or doctors), and to you I also raise a glass. For those of you raising families as well, I have to say…. we are all fighting the good fight. Our men (and even women) are putting their lives at risk in one way or another, and you are holding down the home-front. That in itself is worthy of a Super Hero title. 

The fire wife life has been really good to me. I work part time doing what I LOVE, and I get to spend lots of time with my little girls. Often I sit back and think how blessed I am to be able to do this. When I get into those frustrated moments when my husband is out of town, I have to remember that He is bettering himself to continue to take care of us. And then the good thing? We get to travel together often! Because of his shift work, he can do swaps to work more during one week and be gone the next. We retreat a lot as the LaTour family, and I know this is a huge blessing. Fire wife, fire life.

At the end of the day my hubs may have just gotten home after a 48 and only has 24 hours with us before he turns around and works another 24….. but I rest in gratitude for our adventures. I rest in gratitude that I can be the steady home “hero” my kids need me to be, and he can be one of South Walton’s 100 plus real life heroes. We are in this together, it is what I signed up for, it is what we do. Fire wife, fire life.