Rest in peace Matthew J.

When you lose someone close to you it is always difficult. But losing my 20-year-old cousin has been the most mentally and emotionally challenging time of my life. On September 18, 2007 Cpl. Matthew J. Emerson died in Iraq in a rollover Humvee accident that threw him out of the vehicle. The Army was his life-long dream and he got to live it. He joined the Army during his senior year in high school and shipped out to boot camp just a month after graduation in July 2005.

My dad always said, "Matt has been here before." That sounds a little weird, but it seemed so true if you knew him. He was a quiet, scrawny little boy who never had a lot to say. But when he spoke, it was often with a wry sarcasm hardly normal in a young child. He seemed not to have much interest in the nonsense most kids enjoy and spoke with wisdom beyond his years. Matt was not really a good student. Not that he wasn't smart - he just wasn't interested and didn't want to bother with things that weren't interesting to him. He didn't want to go to college, he wanted to join the Army. So whatever it took to get there was all that mattered in his education.

I remember many conversations with my husband and my parents about Matt's "obsession" with the Army. He was always dressing in camouflage to play war games or paintball. He had books and could tell you more than you probably ever wanted to know about the Army. But we all thought it was just a childhood fantasy and that he didn't really understand what he was getting in to. Many of us encouraged him to go to college first and then decide. But Matt was not to be deterred from his dream. He understood - way better than any of us - what he was getting in to. Mind you, after he enlisted there were many times he may have missed all of us and wondered what he got himself into, but he always knew what he wanted.

Matt was the baby of the family and wasn't supposed to die. There are so many other things he had yet to experience. His death seems so harshly unfair. From the moment my Mom told me he was dead and I began screaming, "No, no, no," until the current hour I sit blogging...I just can't wrap my tiny little brain around it all. My heart continually aches and this overwhelming sadness randomly overcomes me. And what do I do when this happens? Especially while I am at the grocery store or eating lunch with my 2 and 3 year-olds. They don't know what is going on in my heart and mind and I am certainly not just going to bring it up. I have to keep trudging along and deal with my grief within the confines of daily life.