Shovel Time

I made the choice to go into my office to throw the bundles of trash I have stacked in different places all over the room. One bag had a can of his dip that he left over R&R, bundles of every receipt from when he was here, and the lip gloss I wore when I was able to kiss his lips. I got through many of the boxes which led me to the closet...the closet that has bags of letters. Of course I'm a sucker for torturing myself, and opened the bags.

Letters from the past 3 years. A faint smell of the perfume I'd spay on them, and the envelopes he's write tiny messages on. Reading through them I smiled and laughed, but most of all....cried. Cried for the unfairness and cried for all the letters talking of spending the rest of our lives together. I think we all can relate to that :)

Then I opened the calendar I wrote in while he was there. March 24th, 2007 "Baby surprised me today!":

I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was wearing nothing but a Army sweatshirt, sending over Patriotic Chippendale stripper messages to my friends on MySpace, blasting eighties music. I remember hearing my phone ring and ran to the living room to get it. I grabbed the phone and looked up.....there in the window stood my gorgeous husband in his ACUs. I fell to the ground as he smiled at me. Then he said through the door "Baby, open up!." I unlocked the door and couldn't even breathe so laid behind it on the ground. He said "Hi Baby!" I had NO clue he was coming home for R&R! I jumped up and wrapped my legs around him and I think by that time his family, who had dropped him off, left or got a nice glance at my bare butt ;D I was shaking and he walked to the bedroom to put his bag down. He laid on the bed and smiled at me. I literally had to touch his face for 15 minutes to even believe he was there. I could never touch it enough. I would always tell him when he came home for R&R I would give him a million kisses, I got a pretty good start that very moment :)

We all have that moment that seems too surreal. For me it was that day and also the day I drove up to my house with 2 soldiers waiting. I know we all have these days that bring us back down to our knees. The place we all started when we received the news, a place we all have worked hard at getting back to standing position.

I realized that when I was sobbing I was repeating in my mind, "This too shall pass." So cliché'! But you know what, it did, and I'm still here, Michael's still gone, and we have to keep going. We have to read through those letters to not feel pain from the days passed, but to feel the strength we had when we wrote them, the strength that we may have buried with the pain.

So grab your shovels ladies!! Let's start digging the things we may have 'buried' in hopes of feeling less pain. The holes we create will be the ones we are able to pull ourselves out of when we need to.

There is in every heart a spark of heavenly fire

which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.

-Washington Irving