CALGARY - Perched on the edge of her sofa -12,000 kilometres away from the front lines of Afghanistan where her fiance is serving with the Canadian Forces-Leanna Buzak is dealing with her own hardships.

"Sometimes you just get fed up with it all ... you had a rotten day at work, a hundred things have gone wrong, I've got to get up to his house to cut the grass and I don't have time," sighs Buzak, 36.

"And then he doesn't phone you or e-mail you and (you feel like) ... nobody cares. It's just the loneliness. Sometimes you just get tired of being alone when you're in a couple. Sometimes it's just hard."

She proudly shows off a picture of a recent holiday in Italy with her husband-to-be, Master Cpl. Robert Jackson, 38, of the Calgary Highlanders. He's been gone since February and is due back this fall. They are to be married Nov. 8.

"I would like him sitting right here beside me," she says, patting the cushion beside her. "At the same time, it makes him happy. It's the work he loves and part of who he is."

Jackson, a reservist, works with autistic and disabled children when he is at home.

Buzak is not the only one holding a lonely vigil for loved ones serving overseas. She is one of countless military partners left alone to deal with the day-to-day humdrum of working, taking care of homes and looking after children.

"You realize you've got to do it alone and you're going to be two parents. It's hard," says Ginna McDermott, 27, as she watches her son, Brendan, 8, playing on his computer in their southwest Calgary apartment.

"A lot of parents don't know what it's like to be both the dad and the mom because you've got to take care of the kids, you've got a job and you don't have someone with you to help you with it."

Her husband, Cpl. Shawn McDermott of the Calgary Highlanders, is on his second tour of Afghanistan. A large wedding photo of the couple - she in white and he in his military uniform - hangs above the mantle. There are also pictures of their son in a mini-military uniform and aiming a toy gun.

"I want to be an army man and a scientist when I grow up," says Brendan, as he takes a brief break from the computer to stand close to his mother.

"I miss having fun with him and going fishing and watching movies together at the theatres and going places."

McDermott kept to herself during her husband's first tour of duty but quickly realized there was both support and help available from other spouses. In any military community, there is a grapevine along which news travels quickly.

"It's a big, tight community and they all respect and support each other. It is a family. Everybody knows everybody and if you don't know them personally you still know them," she said.

Many women become fast friends and share their worries and frustrations.

"There is a grapevine but there is also a lot of sensitivity to the family," acknowledged Claire Savage, who has been married five years to Capt. Owen Savage, a member of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.

"There's a couple of military wives I've become very close to while the husbands are overseas and we get together regularly for coffee. We ... can share information practically on the day-to-day struggles of living on your own," said Savage, who recently joined the reserves and is a second lieutenant.

Buzak joined the Calgary Highlander's ladies auxiliary and is a member of two online communities for spouses of Canadian soldiers who are overseas. Her online "family" has become a lifeline for her.

"They have become some of my closest allies in the last year because they understand what you're going through in ways that your civilian friends and even your family doesn't," Buzak said.

"It's been nice to have a place to go and rant when you need to and celebrate the things you need to celebrate."

She's also close to many of the other spouses in Calgary. There are "lots of phone calls back and forth" and efforts to go out to dinner together once a month.

A major thing the women share is fear that the next bad news out of Afghanistan will be personal. That reality hit close to home on May 6 when Cpl. Michael Starker of Calgary died in an ambush outside Kandahar.

"Definitely it scares me. The sense of tragedy for that family hits you because it could so easily be our family," says Savage. "That could be Owen and that's very scary.

"I just keep myself focused ... and think if Owen and the guys over there can help people, then I guess I can deal with my fear."

Buzak says bad news is worrisome - no matter who it affects. "You hear it on the news, your person's OK, but you worry about everybody else."

McDermott expects her husband will eventually go on tour again. She says it's important for Canadians to understand what military families go through.

"They always focus on the soldiers and them being overseas. They don't seem to focus on the families that are left behind, that are left to deal with all the issues the soldiers don't have to worry about," she says softly.

"A lot of people wonder how do you do it? How do you wait for your husband for so long? We all know how to deal with it to a point, but when they do get home, you have to get used to being married again."

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