pink earmuffs

It's been a little bit since I last posted.  Nothing much has changed & I am continuing to work on the whole delighting thing.  I've come to realize that I am not defined by my job, my relationship status, looks or anything else that the world places so much value on.
However, I felt really strange this morning.  Like I needed to cry or something.  I went to church and came home.  I started watching an HBO documentary on "Last Letters," which I knew would likely cause me to cry.  The documentary was of families that lost loved ones in Iraq and had them reading the last letters they received.  The whole thing built up emotions for me and the last one was a woman from Colorado who was pregnant when she found out her husband died.  She also continued to receive letters for quite some time after he passed.  I'm pretty sure she was on Oprah or something.  All that emotion in me led me to go sit outside & journal for a bit.  I started thinking about my Dad & my own family's commitment to this country.
My Dad made huge sacrifices for my family.  He wanted my Mom, brother & me to have a better life than he had in rural Missouri.  He wanted to give us better opportunities than he had.  I vividly remember when he went to Kuwait when I was in second grade.  I desperately wanted pink earmuffs for Christmas.  I knew that Daddy would somehow find them for me.  As a family, we had an early celebration with Daddy of Christmas before he deployed.  I got pink earmuffs!  I was so thrilled!  But Daddy still had to leave.  I remember the yellow ribbon tied around the lamp post in the front yard.  A reminder to everyone of the sacrifice our family was making.  I remember my Mom recording on a tape cassette my brother & me opening presents Christmas morning so that she could mail it to Daddy & he could be a part of that too.  I remember her making what seemed like vats of caramel corn & chex mix to send over in care packages.
While I was journaling about all these memories, tears were streaming down my face.  I'm still not entirely sure why this needed to come back, but it did.  And I will continue to process this for some time, I'm sure.