Clean Sweep

Our clean sweep was quite successful today.
We cleaned out the closet and dresser in our room and went through all of Matt's Army gear and junk boxes.
We got rid of about 3 bins of old stuff we don't use, have 2 1/2 bins ready for Matt to turn in, a few items to try and sell, and only two piles of junk left in the middle of the garage waiting for attention.
We still have one shelf that we need to go through in the garage.  By we, I mean mostly Matt.  But it was clear he reached his limit and it was best not to attempt the shelves.

I thought this day would be hard on Matt because he hates doing this kind of thing, as it turns out, it was harder on me.

With each bin that he opened and each set of uniforms he pulled out came floods of memories and unexpected emotions.  His uniform has changed about 7 times in his Army career - maybe more - so it is easy to match where we were in our lives with the uniform he is holding in his hands.
Infantry gear, his first flight suit, his desert uniforms, his uniforms from Korea... all represented different monumental events in our lives.
Each set of uniforms bore a different rank and unit insignia.
Most displayed his combat patch from service in Iraq.

Then there were the boots.
Matt has also worn a few different styles of boots in his time in the Army.  Now they wear ugly brown ones but when he first joined he wore black ones called "jump boots".  They were dull black except for the toes which are shiny.  He pulled out the boots and I felt my throat seize up and tears build up in my eyes.  Something about those boots.

Sifting through all these uniforms was like watching 18 years fly by in front of your face.
18 years of an excellent career.

Then came the letters.

Matt saves every single letter ever mailed to him.
Today we went through every letter sent to him while he was in Iraq.  (We didn't even attempt to tackle the ones from Basic, AIT, Ranger School, WOC school, or Korea.)  I'm not gonna lie, there were many, many letters that brought me to tears.

I forgot how many people were faithfully supporting him while he was deployed.  We read dozens of letters from strangers.  We read letters that referred to care packages that were sent and hundreds filled with words of encouragement, support, and prayers.

Matt has over 30 letters written on American flag notecards, the envelopes all bedazzled with American flags, from my Grandma P.  She wrote every letter on Sunday, started with a brief run down of the day, updated him on the family and the weather, and then prayed over him.  Then there was a series of letters from my cousin Rhonda referring to a very elusive Gameboy game they were trying to hunt down for Matt.  I was cracking up as I read about a dozen letters each referring to that game that apparently never came out.  There were sweet letters thanking Matt for his service, a lot of updates on family, a fun little note my my niece that said something about the world being a big place and you can do all sorts of things in it.  She told Matt that she likes to read and hoped one day to read to him.  A few items were particularly hard to look over: the last letters Matt received from his grandfathers before they died, photos of friends who died, and letters from people who rarely sent anything but shared their heart when they did.
It was hard to watch Matt look at the pictures of Eli, knowing that those pictures were the only thing he had at the time to watch his little guy grow up.

At the end of the day, my hands were dirty, my head was sneezy, and my heart was so full.  Full of pride for Matt's career, full of gratitude for those who supported him and love us, and just thankful that we got through all those tough times and have a great story to share.

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