Kayla Ewing, who is 18 and pregnant, just saw her soldier husband off the other day from Scottsboro, Ala., on the first leg of his journey to Iraq. I don't know Kayla and, most likely, neither do you. But her story, one of the many similar goodbyes reported almost daily by the media, is completely familiar to thousands of families across the country, and timeless. `` I miss him already,'' Kayla told a reporter as the buses pulled away. May only good news be the gift today for every mother or mother-to-be awaiting word of a soldier serving in Iraq or Afghanistan or elsewhere.

You are not alone, not today, not all through time. A young, very pregnant wife writes in her journal: `` Every morning at 9:50 the train has come up and stopped long enough to bring heartache to many people and, always to me, is has meant glancing in the paper to see if there were any familiar faces in the pictures of the recruits leaving. If there was someone I knew, I greeted the recognition with exclamations of surprise, but certainly not of sorrow.

`` But today it was different, because it was you who went away.

`` When I woke up at quarter to seven, you were still asleep and I lay there happy in the knowledge of your closeness even though I knew it was but a matter of minutes before a new era would begin for you.

`` We had breakfast together and then went to your mother's house and your sister drove you to say goodbye to your father. `` While you were gone I told your mother that if one tear appeared in my eyes, she was to kick me soundly in the fanny, and she said she would.

`` I'm glad she didn't have to and I was proud of you because you were so smiling and natural, while some of the other men looked so unhappy that their families must have felt a terrible despair.

`` There were many people to see you off at the station: Our friends Kay, Millie, your mother, your father, your sister, Paul, even Ray -- and our baby, due in two months. `` We laughed at the cold drizzle of rain and low gray clouds, and others in the station were smiling and laughing, too, until the mayor appeared and called `Here's the train, boys.'

`` On that moment, everything changed.

`` Hurriedly you kissed people goodbye and then, despite the baby, you hugged me close to you, and we walked down the platform to the car assigned.

`` On the way I heard a wife cry out in such an anguished voice `` Oh, my darling'' and I knew she spoke for all of us.

`` For the very last moment has come and nothing could stop it, and you could only pray that all the unsaid words in your heart would be heard.

`` Then the train moved away and I heard Kay say, `` The worst is over now, Jeane,'' and when I turned to look at her, she was crying, but I wasn't. It wasn't until I got home and went to our room and saw your slippers placed neatly side by side, and your pajamas where you had hung them behind the door, and your socks and underwear clean and ready to be put away, that I cried.

`` Kay was very wrong.

`` The worst is not over and won't be until you are with me again. `` That night I took your pajama top to bed with me and even though I tossed and turned and slept miserably, when I woke up in the morning I still clutched the pajama top with a grasp of iron.''

My mother was the writer, pregnant with me, 63 years ago.

I was three months old when I finally met my father.

BETSY SHEA-TAYLOR is associate opinion page editor. She can be reached at 508-236-0439 or at fieldflddirty*fldinst ref HYPERLINK "mailto:btaylor(at)thesunchronicle.com"fldrslt btaylor(at)thesunchronicle.com.