Writing in Cadence

I have a memory box. The concept of a memory box is not mine to trademark, as a quick Google search will assure you, nor is the idea a new one. While the individual box itself can range based on looks, material, and style, the general thought is that it is a small container, no bigger than a shoe box. My memory box consists of a 31”x17”x13” Gorilla footlocker made of cheap plastic I picked up on my final deployment.

The box was originally purchased with a singular goal on my mind: limit the amount of crap I would inevitably be carrying back home. Despite the name branding, the footlocker had a reputation for arriving at its final destination with cracks, or in many cases, sizable holes. I stuffed mine as full as I could get it, then stuffed it some more. I wrapped packing tape around the entirety of the box, in part, to keep the lid closed in shipment, but more to keep all the pieces of the thing together when it inevitably broke on the journey. The United States Postal Service may be responsible for the shipping of the military’s packages, but the overseas package handling and shipment falls to the troops; we are not known for having a light touch.

By way of a miracle, the tuff box arrived at its intended destination intact. It gained a new lease in life by collecting dust since I had no interest in unpacking a compacted mess of clothes and gear from a country I was so eager to leave behind. Months into my return, I decided to brave a look inside and began the task of sorting its contents, alongside the rest of my earthly treasures I’d stored from before I had crossed the Atlantic.

With my life scatted out in piles around me, I began the task of inventorying all that I had to my name. There were keepsakes and important moments in my life that went into this box. The News and Observer headlining the day I went on my first deployment with North Carolina’s 30^th Heavy Brigade Combat Team went in along with my dojo’s banner we made in Iraq together, after countless gatherings to train between missions. Ribbons and medals I’ve earned were laid beside memorabilia I got at my first Coca-Cola 600 event and meeting “Rowdy” Kyle Busch. There were items that I no longer found value in and either gave to friends and family or to my trashcan. I turned the box, that at one point was nothing more than a tool to help me exit a country I was a temporary moment in, into a time capsule of my life. I put what I valued about myself inside before life forced me to put the box into storage for the next two years.

Those two years were spent on the reconstruction and rehabilitation of my feet at Fort Bragg stemming from an injury I endured on that same deployment. I forgot about the box of memories lying in wait for me at the other end of my recovery. When my medical procedure had reached a closure, I moved off base and pulled everything back out of the storage again. I had found a place that fit my needs of being close to all my doctors and, given my disabilities, I did not need a place that was bigger than I could handle on my own. I found a little one-bedroom apartment on the ground level that fit my needs perfectly. This meant that now I had more stuff than room to accommodate it. The memory box, along with several other tuff boxes of dirty gear, equipment I couldn’t let go of because I swore I would find a use for it, and Iraqi sand that I was never able to fully shake out, was stuffed into the patio closet to continue waiting.

Eventually I enrolled into school at UNCW and found an apartment close to campus that I liked. It was bigger, but I knew that this was a temporary move. The weekend I got to Wilmington, I made an impromptu proposal to my girlfriend Ashley, who had been the backbone of securing my relocation. After I agreed to marry her (let’s face it—she asked me), I knew that my stay in the city would be short lived. We were living two hours apart and would somehow have to find a way to meet in the middle with our lives. So I lived out of cardboard boxes for the entirety of my lease and the Gorilla footlocker lived in the spare closet.

We found a house, got married, and bought it, in that order, because 2020 was a wild year. It was such a strange feeling to move into our new home and realize that I could finally enjoy the things I had stored away for so many years. All the books I had collected, and the movies and games that had come into my possession, all of them were finally accessible to me. Slowly but surely, I had begun to pick away at unpacking my life. That black, plastic box found a new home in my office space. I opened it six months after we moved in, and this time, I was able to share the experience with someone special.

Four years had passed since I had filled this treasure chest up and started the process of burying it over and over again. Now I was lifting the lid to reveal the treasures inside, as well as uncover a life I had forgotten. With my wife by my side, we began to pull memory after memory out and see what story it told. There were the awards and certificates of merit from my service that noted the value I brought to my unit. The old News and Reporter from the year our state deployed to Iraq. I still remember the excitement we felt of seeing our brothers and sisters featured on the front page as the News and Observer talked about how four thousand citizen soldiers were about to answer the call of their country. I pulled out my boonie cap that I wore in country; we all thought those things made us look so cool. I had gone to the local sew shop on the base and had a nice old lady who did not understand a word of English make me a scroll patch that said “Smartass” and sew it to the inside of my brim. The thing is still dingy and covered with the hard work and sweat from so many years ago that call back to a time when I was working harder than I ever thought I could.

Next to it lay my helmet cover from that tour. A reminder that I had watched way too many movies was evident in the target I had poorly drawn on the back of the cover with the words “COME ON, I DARE YA!” scrawled around it. It was a testament to my possible fearlessness and certain idiocy, but a warm memory of surviving a chapter in my life I never knew I could go through.

This time capsule held many other great wonders in it. There were long, white magnets with my name on them from my second trip to the Coca-Cola 600 where I got to ride the first lap around the track in the bed of a truck Kyle Busch; my name was on the sides of the truck! A picture commemorating the occasion lay in a bubble wrapped frame.

I continued to pull out memories of my life that reminded me of where I had been and how I had gotten here. The American flag I was given upon my retirement. A drumstick signed by Benjamin Burnley, my musical hero, my gi and belt from when I was actively training in martial arts. Most of our dojo had deployed together. We all came home. There was even a toy my father had sent me for my birthday on my second deployment that had made it into the box. It was a figure of Hoban Washburne from the completely underrated and unjustly canceled series, Firefly, complete with dinosaurs. I had been introduced to the show in Iraq and had made the unfortunate decision to dismiss it before seeing the error of my ways. Years later I shared the love for this show with my father who sent me this small memento as a gift to uplift my spirits during a hard time I was having overseas. I had never felt such joy for a gift before that and it was a blessed moment that helped heal some pain between my father and myself.

Everything in this box is a memory. Everything in this box is a piece of me. I could never have foreseen the purpose of this little footlocker evolving into what it did nor could I have better planned the timing of it revealing itself. I did not close that box and mark it with a “to be opened on” date then bury it for the next half century. I did not predict the pandemic and build this box of memories up as a way to uplift myself when the year began to wear. What I did do was see value in myself and look to cherish all that I could. Everything that I pulled from that treasure chest had been weighed and measured prior to being put in. Now that it has been revealed and I am able to celebrate these memories around me, I can begin anew with all the fond moments that are ahead of me.

I cannot tell you what will go in this box in the future. It could be a band shirt or a medal from a race I have finished. Perhaps the journal my wife bought me will find its way in once I have filled up its pages. Now that I have joined my life with hers, Ashley may find herself looking to store away memories of her own to be unveiled at a later time in life. Unintentional as this began, it does not need to be planned out, but I do look forward to seeing the me I pull out of the box during the rest of my life.