Three South Shore families with loved ones serving in the Massachusetts National Guard agreed to let Patriot Ledger readers follow their lives at home while those loved ones serve in Iraq. This is part of an occasional series on those families as they live, cope, love and wait.

Counting the days

Anxious Marshfield mom awaits daughter’s possible May return from Iraq

GARY HIGGINS/The Patriot Ledger

Marilyn O’Hearn says watching the news about Iraq makes her “pretty sick” as she nervously awaits her daughter’s return.

STORY BY DON CONKEY
THE PATRIOT LEDGER

MARSHFIELD

The people at the Marshfield post office may never know just how happy they made Marilyn O’Hearn when they called to tell her they had a military footlocker with her name on it.

The locker is being delivered to O’Hearn, but it belongs to her daughter Spc. Sarah O’Hearn. Its arrival back in Marshfield on Thursday means that Sarah isn’t far behind. She could be home from Iraq in May, a year after she was deployed with the 772nd Military Police Company, attached to Delta Company, 1st Battalion of the 181st Infantry Regiment of the Massachusetts National Guard.

“I was thrilled when the post office called, because it means it is getting closer,” O’Hearn said of her daughter’s homecoming.

But her hopefulness is mixed with dread.

“It would just be a real kick in the butt if anything happens now,” she said.

The recent news out of Baghdad has only made her more fearful, more anxious.

Suspected Shiite extremists have been hammering the U.S.-protected Green Zone of late, firing rockets at the heavily fortified area in central Baghdad. Sarah’s unit is based in the Green Zone.

“I’m watching the news, and it makes me pretty sick,” O’Hearn said. “My stomach is doing flip-flops.”

On top of a mother’s constant concern about a child in the military, O’Hearn is burdened with her own job woes.

GARY HIGGINS/The Patriot Ledger

Marilyn O’Hearn says she won’t stop worrying about her daughter Spc. Sarah O’Hearn “until she gets off that plane.” Sarah O’Hearn may be home in Marshfield in May.

She was laid off from her job of nine years in November. She is still looking for a new one.

“I’m hanging in there, but it is really tough,” O’Hearn said.

Sarah, 23, is already thinking about what she will do when she gets back home.

“She has such big plans for herself,” O’Hearn said.

Sarah wants to buy a new car - “some sort of Pontiac,” her mother said, and she’d like to go to college and get a job.

Sarah graduated from Marshfield High School in 2003.

“She’s thinking about doing something in security,” O’Hearn said of the youngest of her two daughters.

Meanwhile, as Sarah ponders what she will be doing after she comes home, her mother can’t stop thinking and worrying about the days leading up to it.

“You just take it day by day and hope for the best,” O’Hearn said.

“I’ll be worried until she gets off that plane.”

Don Conkey may be reached at dconkey@ledger.com.