Lauren Ober/ The Citizen

When Sheila Donovan's 2-year-old granddaughter, Emma, asked where her father was, Donovan told the girl that her daddy was at work.

That wasn't a lie - Matt Stark was, until just last week, serving in Iraq with the Troop E 101st Cavalry of the New York Army National Guard. But it is not the entire truth.

Emma is too young to understand the ideas of war and peace and obviously has no concept of Iraq. So until she does, she will just have to believe that her father was at work for the nearly nine months that she didn't see him.

Donovan soothed the diapered toddler with ash-white hair when she became cranky and wanted her father. It was just one of Donovan's many tasks while her son was away.

Stark, 29, who recently received the rank of staff sergeant, was a professional soldier for six years, serving at Fort Riley, Kan., and Fort Drum in Watertown. He is now a sheriff's deputy with the Onondaga County Sheriff's Department, but he remained a reservist after his discharge.

Donovan has had years to get used to the role of a military parent, but Iraq tested even her steady resolve.

Before Stark shipped out a year ago, Donovan joked with her son that she could break his thumbs and then he wouldn't have to go. Though she meant it in jest, her offer spoke to her deepest fears and concerns. But as a mother she knew she has had to support his decision.

"He's got a job to do, and he wouldn't try to get out of it," she said.

During Stark's deployment, his son A.J. was born on Christmas Day. Since her son wasn't around, Donovan, of Auburn, helped her daughter-in-law, Sara, pick up the slack. When she wasn't pulling 12-hour nursing shifts at Auburn Memorial Hospital, she was giving Sara, who lives in Weedsport, a much-needed respite.

Donovan isn't one to wallow and when Stark shipped off to Iraq, there was nothing she could do but get on with her regular life. She had to be strong for Sara and for her grandchildren.

"I didn't dwell on it," Donovan said about her son's deployment. "But I would actively avoid the news."

For Donovan, watching the news just reminded her that her son was thousands of miles from home. So she chose to get her news straight from her son, which of course was sanitized for her protection.

"He told us the good news, which was nice because it's stuff people didn't hear about. It tells you why we're there," she said.

While Donovan looked forward to hearing her son's voice, it was also one of the hardest parts of his absence. She could hear the exhaustion in her son's voice from working 12-hour days at a thankless, dangerous job, and she knew she couldn't do anything to help him.

But she had faith in his years of training and she was "secure in his skills." That faith didn't make all the bad days go away - Donovan, who is soft-spoken and somewhat reserved, admits of having one or two difficult days during Stark's many months away, but she willed herself past her emotions.

"I just had to get past it. You have to realize you can't do anything about it," Donovan said.

Donovan isn't interested in the politics of her son's service as much as the fact that he's home. But she's proud of his work in Iraq and believes in the war effort. Though she didn't like to see her son go, she felt in her heart it had to be done.

"If we're not fighting it there," she said, "we're fighting it here."