I Won’t Forget To Remember On Memorial Day
By Casey Nicole
On Friday as I left work a co-worker stopped me. “Aren’t you excited about this weekend? What are y’all going to do? It’s the official start of summer!”
Surprisingly I didn’t hit her, or yell, or try to explain why she is a complete idiot. I simply told her my plans would be much different from hers and that I hoped she enjoyed her long weekend.
I am excited to have the day off, but I will spend my time differently than most. For many people, Memorial Day is not “the official start of summer”.
Over nine years ago, on February 19, 2006, my parents’ phone rang. I knew that phone call was no good. I had not heard from my husband in five days.
It is a fuzzy but clear memory.
It was just a little after 5am. My dad woke me up and said I had visitors. He’s a strong man, 6’2″ and 240, and I’ve never seen him show fear. That morning was different.
I put on my red USMC sweatshirt and headed downstairs. I knew what I was about to see. Before me stood a Navy chaplain and two United States Marines. One shook my hand and began to speak; he had a terrible stutter.
I didn’t hear everything he said. I lost all of my senses momentarily, but I heard enough. With my left hand on my pregnant USMC-covered stomach and the other in the chaplain’s hand, I gritted my teeth and stared him straight in the eye. He had a whole scripted line to read me, but I didn’t need to hear that.
“Your husband, Cpl. Matthew Conley, was killed in action.”
I asked him if he was sure, and he stuttered, “Y-y-yes ma’am.” He walked me to my mother’s sofa to sit. I looked around the room. My parents and Matthew’s family were all crying. I remember Matthew’s father sobbing. I don’t remember crying myself; it was like a terrible scene from a horror story.
I couldn’t hear the Marine in front of me any longer or the sobs and sniffles around me. I heard only a few details throughout the Marine’s required reading. Later, I would see how it happened — there was a filmmaker in the backseat during the explosion — but in that moment, I just listened to what I could.
They found him a few hundred yards away from the blast. Matt had stepped out of the vehicle, basically right on top of an IED that was detonated when his feet hit the sand. Some of his face was missing, his trigger finger, his left leg, shrapnel everywhere.
There is a photo floating around of his Humvee. It’s unbelievable.
I remember asking what happened to the bomber, the Marine was not 100% sure. I found out later that the bomber had been gunned down along with many others.
I’m not sure how much time went by that morning. Everything stood still. At some point, Matt’s family and the Marines left. My mom told me to shower and prepare for a hard day full of people.
Wait, it gets harder? Oh man, did it ever.
I turned on the shower and gazed down at the protruding belly I had grown. My little girl was in there and she would never see him. Ever. She would never know how devoted he was to her, to me, and to his country. She would never get to hold his hand and gaze into his baby blues or experience his unbelievable laugh.
That is when it hit me. I sat on the shower floor and cried. I cried until the water ran cold, and continued to cry for a half hour after that. I decided I couldn’t make it without him, I’d never survive.
The next five days were a blur of shock and denial. I wouldn’t believe it until I saw him. Eventually, I did see him. That was the hardest part. He looked nothing like he did when I had said goodbye to him six months earlier. He was dead.
It was him, and he was dead.
We buried my Matt, Cpl. Matthew D. Conley, on February 26, 2006. It was his 22nd birthday and one month before my due date. I gave birth to our precious baby girl just 3 weeks later. It was the most beautiful moment of my life.
The nine years that have passed since Matt died have been a complete roller coaster. The circumstances that surrounded his death and the birth of our sweet girl made it something that almost no one could relate to.
Grief is a hard road to travel alone.
I prayed a lot the day he died that we would be the last ones to get news like that. I still pray that there will be an end to it all. I will never completely move past that day, but in the past few years I have been able to move forward.
Every year we spend our Memorial Day differently, but Matthew — and those who left before and after — are always on our minds
In honor of Cpl. Matthew D. Conley, we encourage you to please visit the Wounded Warrior Project, a charity and veterans service organization that offers a variety of programs, service and events for wounded veterans of the military actions following the events of September 11, 2001.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Casey Nicole is an Alabama girl, raised on comfort food and good music. She is a photographer, office manager and mother to her amazing daughter, Catherine. When she’s not busy momming, working, or cooking delicious food with her fiancée (Rob), she can be found watching Mad Men reruns on the left side of her recliner with her dog, and eating enough strawberries for two–because #2 is on the way!
