With Daddy Home From War, A Thankful Family Adapts

With Daddy Home From War, A Thankful Family Adapts
By RINKER BUCK | The Hartford Courant
November 3, 2008

LEDYARD — - Zoë Hoekman is a spunky and adorable 5-year-old who, all of a sudden now, joyfully skips off alone to Sunday school and charges out of the minivan when her mother drops her off at a friend's house for a play date.

In the lives of most girls, happy, spontaneous moments like these would barely be noticed.

But for Zoë, whose father, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Keith Hoekman, spent 15 months in Afghanistan last year, skipping off alone to Sunday school and charging out of the minivan at a friend's house represent considerable progress.

A March profile in The Courant described the difficulties that Zoë's mother, Lori Hoekman, experienced raising three young children (and pregnant with a fourth) while her husband was deployed in a remote part of Afghanistan. That article described how Zoë had endured particularly tender pangs while her father was away, clinging to the legs of men and refusing to let her mother out of her sight when she played with friends.

"After Keith left for Afghanistan, Zoë realized that she had already lost one parent, and she wasn't about to lose another," Lori Hoekman said. "Something as simple as a play date with a friend, or going to Sunday school, she just couldn't face alone."

But Keith Hoekman, 33, a Navy nurse practitioner who ran medical clinics for Afghan villagers in the remote Ghazni province, returned to a joyful reunion with his family at Bradley International Airport on March 25. During the seven months since his return, the family has welcomed a new addition; their fourth child, Titus Leander, was born Sept. 6. (Lori conceived while Keith was home during a brief Christmas break last year.) And they have enjoyed many other touching returns to normalcy.
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