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She'll get her flowers and she'll probably have dinner at a nice restaurant Sunday, but for Tonyia Cox the only Mother's Day gift that really matters is seeing her son, Jason Ford, in the flesh.
After four nerve-racking months in Iraq, he is home.
"I might just sit there and stare at him," Cox, a Marietta resident, said when asked what she'll do to celebrate. "[Jason] thinks I'm kind of crazy for saying that, but I told him, 'When you become a father, then you'll know.' "
Mothers across America, including thousands from Georgia whose sons and daughters serve in the 48th Brigade out of Fort Stewart, are welcoming home their soldiers after tours in the Middle East. It makes their annual holiday Sunday all the more special.
Many, like Cox, feel a mixture of pride and relief: It has been a harrowing time.
"You live moment to moment. You live in fear," Cox said. "[Jason] would call from over there and I'd be crying on the phone, so he'd say the only time I should worry is when there's a knock on the door.
"The dog would bark, telling me someone was in the yard, coming to the door, and I'd panic."
Cox never expected her son to join the Georgia Army National Guard in August 2004. He was 27 and newly married.
Ford, now 28 and living in Woodstock, had been working for Lenscrafters, but after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, he felt he had to do something for his country. He joined the Guard.
His mother agreed that somebody had to do something --- she just wished it was somebody else's son. "I was being a selfish mom," she said.
"Mom wasn't too thrilled at first, because I kind of did it, then told her about it," Ford said. "It was definitely a shock for her. It's been hard, I know."
How hard?
"It was like he ripped my heart out," Cox said.
She was at work when he called and told her he had joined. She thought he was calling to tell her she was going to be a grandmother.
Ford left in October for training, after spending some time assisting Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans, and then went to Iraq, arriving New Year's Eve.
When Cox saw her son as he returned to Fort Stewart with about 200 other soldiers in late April, it was an overwhelming moment.
"I couldn't even get off the bleachers, I was crying so hard," she said. "It was like a big weight off my shoulders. I suppose if you didn't have a son over there you wouldn't know how I felt. I have him on a pedestal so high he can't be reached."
Ford, a specialist in the 108th Armor Regiment, showed his mother some video of his time in Iraq. She couldn't watch long. "He showed us explosions on the road. You could hear the bullets. I had to leave," Cox said.
A medic as well as a Humvee convoy driver in the Army, Ford hopes that he might someday use his medical skills as a paramedic or as an emergency firefighter back in the United States. He has an eight-year National Guard commitment, however, and the likelihood is that he will wind up deployed in combat again.
Jason is looking forward to that time. "I've still got buddies over there who need medics, who need help, who need a break," he said.
His mother is not.
But at least she has him now.
Copyright 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
