I cannot promise you every night of my life. I cannot promise to be beside you for every difficult moment, every trial, every hardship. In truth, I can promise you that I will not be with you for most. I will leave you at inconvenient times. I may miss the births of our children. Any special date to us may be tainted with the anniversary of the death of one of my friends. I will ask you to take over whatever life we have built together for months and years at a time. And will then crash back into that life that you have used your sweat and your tears and your heartache to keep together and try to take it back as I knew it before. I will shut you out at times because it will be the best way for me to hold it together at that moment. I will lie to you. I will tell you I don’t know things when I do. I will not always tell you where I am going, when I will be back, or who I am with. I may not call you for weeks and months and you will not be able to call me. You will ask questions that I won’t answer. You will know answers to questions that you will hope you never need. I will share things with my brothers that you will never understand. They will know things about me that you never will. They will be a support to me in some things that you cannot be. I will miss birthdays. I will miss anniversaries. I will have to get to know our children over and over again. I may need time to process things that seem natural to everyone else. It will seem that someone - or something -will always take precedence over you. You may lose me long before you ever thought possible. I will uproot you and ask you to re-establish our family anywhere in the world, in any season, at any time - over and over again. Sand and mud will be tracked through your halls from the boots I am too tired to take off. I will leave you when you beg me not to. I will stand at attention while you cry beside me. I will not turn my head and I will walk away. I will knowingly break your heart. And I will do it again - and again.

I cannot promise you all of me. I cannot promise that to our children. I cannot promise you much of anything.

But if you will have me, I can promise that as I march away from you it is not without sharing your heartache. I promise you that every time I break your heart I will be breaking mine. Every time that I cannot answer you I will be protecting you. Whenever you want to call and you have no number to dial I will be wanting to do the same. I will protect everything that we have created together with every fiber of my being while you do the same back at home. I will honor you in everything -every moment that we are apart and every moment that I am with you. I will fight harder and push further knowing that I do so for you. I will see the faces of our children in every life that I protect. And I will carry you with me in everything until my sandy boots once again sit just inside our door.

You Never Know How Someone Feels Because A Smile Can Hide A Million Tears; You Never Know How Much Someone’s Hurting Because They Keep Their Feelings Hid; You Never Truly Know About A Person Unless You Ask; You Never Know How Rumors Can Effect Someone Until They Hurt Themselves; You Will Never Know What A Person Goes Through Every Day Because You Don’t Like In Their Shoes; So If You Don’t Have Anything Nice To Say Or Do Then Don’t Do Nothing At All. Because You Never Realize What You Have Until It’s Gone!

They Hated Her Because Her Beauty Out Did Theirs. She Played It Off Like Everything Was Okay; Her Friends Believed It But The Bullies Knew She Cried Every Day. Got Bullied At Her New School But Got Love In Her Hometown; They Say She In A Better Place, So I Guess She’s Home Now! Nobody Knew How She Really Felt, Because She Kept It To Herself. Brought Down On The Inside But She Kept Grinning; Good People Deserve Good Things, Only Bad Things Is What Haters Would Bring. 0ne Day She Had Enough And Couldn’t Take It No More. She Thought That If She Was Gone They Wouldn’t Hate Her No More. Innocent People Die Every Day And Tori Was One! Rest In Heaven Baby Girl; You Made An Impact And Will Forever Live On.

.July14th,1996 - May8th12012;