She was cleaning out her closet, when she came upon a box;
filled with pictures and momentos, from the man she'd loved, and lost.
And as she raised the lid, she felt her heart catch in her throat,
because it also held inside, the love letters that he wrote.

She pulled the ribbon that held them, and read them, one by one,
and smiling, she recalled, how innocently it had begun.
It seemed so very long ago, and then again, like yesterday;
they were sweethearts back in High School, and they would have been still today.

He knew just how to make her smile, and he knew when something was wrong.
He knew by the look in her eyes, that within her heart, he belonged.
For 4 years, they shared everything, and he was the man of her dreams,
then he took his High School Diploma, and signed on with the Marines.

Though it was hard to be apart, while he was away in training;
they wrote to each other every day, to keep their love, remaining.
She cried the first time she saw him, standing proud in his uniform.
She cried again, when he proposed, and threw herself into his arms.

They made love for the first time that night. Who knew it would be their last?
Deployed the very next day, he became a part of her past.
Something went wrong on his mission. It's the risk you take in a war.
He left more than his woman behind, when he died for country and corps.

Now, she's sitting inside her closet, and wiping away her tears.
Missing the man, whose gift she has loved, alone, for all of these years.
She never had the chance to tell him, about the child she carried.
Still, she raised that boy to honor his dad: the man she never married.

She is glad for the love they shared, the night he made her a mother;
and each day, she marvels at how, the child is so like his father.
Now each time she looks at her son, she knows who it is that she sees;
for she's looking into the eyes, of her most precious memories.

Though she knows he wouldn't have wanted, for her to be alone;
the love they had shared, was strong enough, to raise their son on her own.
She still wears the ring he gave her. And she will, til the day she dies.
For she knows he's waiting for her, in his place far beyond the skies.

So she wraps her arms around her child, and knows she's holding Heaven.
And every night she tells him about, the man she's never forgotten.
He aspires to fill the boots, of the dad he has never seen.
She believes he will, because he carries, the heart of her Marine.

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