SBE19

The Gary Sinice Foundation is an INCREDIBLE organization that honors the families of fallen soldiers every year by taking surviving spouses and their children on an all-expense paid trip to Disney World. No expense has been spared and every minute detail has been accounted for right down to pre-provided luggage tags so you don’t have to deal with the regular ticket counter at the airport.

Luke and I have been VERY excited for this trip, and people keep telling us how lucky we are.

Are we?

Lucky?

Lucky that my husband shot himself two days before Christmas leaving me pregnant and alone and leaving Luke fatherless after his biological mother abandoned him too?

No, I wouldn’t say lucky…

But, we are SO gracious and thankful for people like Gary go above and beyond to give families that have lost so much- the opportunity to connect with others just like them and give them a true experience of a lifetime.

As I finish packing for SBE19 tonight, I remember why we are going on this trip….and then I find myself sitting on my closet floor rooting through the box of Sean’s things that I kept…and ultimately crying into his underwear.

It used to be a drawer, but after I moved I decided to keep Sean’s things in a box in my closet. It’s a strange culmination of things-

• 8 t-shirts
• A pair of pajama pants
• Army issued PT shorts and a shirt
• His wallet, now emptied.
• His dice box
• A collector’s train watch given to him by his paternal grandfather.
• The ring boxes that once held our wedding rings.
• A leather bound journal I bought for him on his last birthday, which he never wrote in.
• A small box that once had a belt his maternal grandmother bought for him in it.
• Instead of the belt, the CD of the photos from the that night are hidden away in it.
• The belt
• His favorite tie clip and cuff links I’d bought for him for our first wedding anniversary.
• The original box his ashes came in from the funeral home.
• And the now tear stained underwear.

I wish I could still smell him in those clothes. I’m forgetting things like what his voice and his laugh sounded like or his smell.

God, I miss him. I’d give anything in the world to have him back.

This is going to be both an uplifting and emotional trip for everyone involved…I’m glad I bought waterproof mascara.

I should probably get back to packing now.