Letters from home.

This is going to be a long one.

Ok, today I decided it was a good day to tackle Laurie's room. It has two dressers in it - both filled with clothes she no longer wears and I have her blessing to either sell them in our garage sale next month, give them to the Good Will, or put them out at the curb. It's not an easy task when you're a mom walking down memory lane and trying to be objective. "NO, you CAN'T keep that Susan - it won't fit you, and it doesn't fit Laurie, and Veronica won't grow into it for 10 years at least." I said that over and over again today as I went through those dressers. Despite my emotions, I was able to sort the clothes into the three piles I had planned. Then I went through each pile again and finally decided I was done sorting. Not bad, I thought, except for the fact that I could remember Laurie wearing every single thing I had sorted. Then I got to the prom dresses in the closet...not a good thing. I had already used all the kleenex I'd brought upstairs with me - luckily there were some up there besides.

Then I got to her bookcase - this put me over the edge. As I looked at the little piles of pictures Laurie had taken over the years, I glanced at the pictures and then at the clothes all sorted on the bed. You guessed it - the prom dresses, the skirts, the ecru colored dress I bought her when she played first flute at the marching band concert at school - all of them in the pictures...all of them on the bed, now neatly folded and ready, hopefully, for someone else to wear.

And finally, there were the boxes and the duffel bag under her bed. Now, you must understand that everytime the kids visit and I am cleaning the rooms for them, these boxes and duffel bag come out from under the bed so I can dust. Then, because of course we are always too busy to think about it when the kids are here, they always are forgotten. So today was the day I had to look at the contents - garage sale, good will, or curb?

None of the above.

There, neatly stored, were the contents that I hadn't expected to see. Letters. Probably dozens and dozens of letters addressed to Laurie at various places and addressed to several different ranks - but all of them addressed to Laurie. PV2 Laurie at basic and AIT training, SPC Laurie at the post she spent three years at, and finally, SGT Laurie. She must have saved every letter we ever sent. I read some of them - and as I read them, I could actually remember writing them. There were the letters I wrote to her when she was in basic and AIT - when Ron's mom was living here and terminally ill with cancer. Those were often written after midnight when I finally was ready for bed and could sit and write a letter. Phone calls were scarce in basic - it kept us connected and I think it helped me miss her just a tiny bit less to know that she would be reading it in a couple of days. Laurie told me after her basic training that there was one time when she was feeling pretty worn out and afraid that she wasn't going to pass her final PT test. She said that she sat at her locker and read all of the cards and letters Ron and I had sent...and she said she knew that we were praying for her and she felt at peace.

I guess what I'm saying is that you never know when a letter from home - or a letter to from someone who cares about you - is going to really be important.

When I finish Laurie's room tomorrow night after I get home from work, I will dust under her bed again, and push those boxes and duffel bag back where I found them. If she kept them, then they will stay there for now. When we sell this house, she will have to make the decision. But for now, her letters from home are keepers.

That makes me smile.

God's blessings.