Milestone Misses

This poem is a description of a soldier's guilt of missing important milestones in his daughters life while being on deployment overseas.

He depicts the last days of his tour & preparing to return to his family. His daughter was a one year old when he left and the poem describes how he "he left alone a wonderful wife and a one year old".

He talks of his excitement of touching down at home, and his hurried exit to the gates to see his family. Excitement soon turned to a feeling of guilt when he saw his young daughter run to the gate and realised all that he had missed.

In the lines "Through the gate with happy glee and then I saw what I couldn't believe" "The little one so soft and cute ran to the gate to daddy's love".

It was a sad point of realisation for him.  The realisation of all of the important growth and development that he had missed. He hugs and holds her tight in a bid to disguise the guilt he felt.

Toward the end of the poem he makes a silent apology to his daughter but realises he will never get to witness or experience the milestones that he missed. The poem closes with the pain of missed memories and him knowing that he can never regain them they are gone forever.