A HEARTWARMING REUNION
Chelmsford sailor returns home, surprises sons at Tewksbury preschool
TEWKSBURY >> Pickup time at Building Blocks Preschool and Kindergarten is a happy occasion for most of the young students who attend. It’s when they’re reunited with loved ones and eager to return home.
But come 3 p.m. Friday, Liam and Declan Eble had the biggest smiles in the schoolyard. Their dad Arthur, a lieutenant commander and reservist in the U.S. Navy, returned home after spending nearly a year abroad
Clad in his military uniform, Arthur waited outside the school for his two sons to run into his open arms. Once he spotted his dad, 4-year-old Declan yelled out in joy and dashed over for a big embrace. Arthur scooped him up, kissed him and told him he loved him.
Liam, 3, was “a little slower to put the pieces together,” said mom Brianna Eble, but he grabbed his dad’s leg and joined their group hug. She watched the “heartwarming” moment unfold with big tears in her eyes.
“Our youngest was taking it all in and was almost taken aback by the surprise,” Brianna Eble, of Chelmsford, said. “It was really precious to see them get to reunite with their dad after such a long time.”
Arthur Eble was stationed in Djibouti, a small country in East Africa, where he worked as a Supply Corps officer for about 11 months. Over the last couple weeks, Eble completed end-of-tour training and finished several requirements in Virginia, all the while planning his return home to Chelmsford.
Arthur had last seen his family in December, when he used four days of “liberty time” to meet Brianna and their boys in Paris, the city where Brianna happened to meet him on her 21st birthday. While there, the boys hand-delivered cards from their Building Blocks classmates that Arthur later passed to troops at his base.
Friday’s celebratory homecoming also happened to fall on Brianna’s birthday, which made her husband’s return all the more memorable.
“I said to him, ‘I don’t know what you’re gonna do for my 40th birthday, but you better be planning something special,’” she said with a laugh.
Before his stint in Djibouti, Arthur was stationed in Stuttgart, Germany, for almost 18 months. Arthur returned home to attend Liam’s birth, staying for three weeks before leaving again to complete his service. Brianna and the kids planned to fly out to visit Arthur, but the pandemic prevented that.
Arthur didn’t see his youngest child again until he was 3 or 4 months old. Now, Arthur expects to be home for a while, to witness the important milestones to come.
“I went to the playground, and both boys spotted and ran up, and it was just picture perfect. It was just really nice,” Arthur Eble said of their reunion. “(Building Blocks) did a wonderful job, and the boys were awesome. They’ve been attached to my hip ever since.”
Nearly 50 kids in preschool and kindergarten witnessed the reunion, some of whom made a “welcome home” sign that hung outside the school. Kathleen Mccarthy, director and owner of Building Blocks, said she emphasizes American history and respect for the military in the school’s curriculum, so it was “just a dream” to have the students meet a real service member.
The videos and photos of soldiers returning from deployment trigger intense emotions, Mccarthy said, but to have such a sacred moment captured at her school was thrilling.
“It was wonderful,” Mccarthy said of Friday’s welcome. “An unbelievable experience. We were blessed, too … A homecoming, nothing like it.”
The boys anticipated seeing their dad later in the evening, so his arrival at pickup came as a shock, Arthur said. To prepare for his return home, Declan and Liam have marked the occasion in different ways: eating a Hershey Kiss a day, sending messages to dad via postcards and apps and counting down the remaining Mondays until dad is back.
To have the whole family home again feels “surreal,” Brianna said.
“There’s so many times I would take the kids to do something, go to a museum, and I would think, ‘Geez, I really wish Art was here to do this with me,’” she said. “Now he doesn’t have to miss out on those things.”
Friday night, they stopped at Chelmsford seafood restaurant Fishbones, and over the weekend, Arthur watched his boys play hockey in person for the first time. The Ebles also held their traditional movie night and family sleepover in the living room, Arthur said.
A future deployment is always a possibility for Arthur, who first joined the Navy nearly 16 years ago. Time away from family — and all that’s missed — is “the worst part,” he said.
In the civilian world, he’ll return to his job at Raytheon and continue to spend as much time with his family as possible.
“They’ve been helping me cook dinners and lunches, and we’ve gone to I don’t know how many parks,” Arthur said. “We went to a nice breakfast on Sunday morning, brunch, so just catching up and playing games.”