When my brother was deployed to Iraq a second time I tried to send him at least one letter a week and one care package a month. My brother loves poetry and is a better poet than I ever dreamed of being.  One of his favorite authors is Billy Collins.  So for his birthday while he was deployed (2006) I re-wrote a poem by Billy Collins to make it fit how I felt about him.

The Care Package 

ByTheresa Richardson written in the form of The Lanyard by Billy Collins 

The other day I was walking slowly

down the crowded aisle at Wal-Mart,

moving as if in a dream from snack food to coffees,

from magazine rack to the vast selection of toiletries,

when I found myself staring at this buggy of gifts for my soldier.

I felt humbled and inadequate.

I was caught off guard at my emotions that took me back to

every war documentary I had ever seen or story told by a veteran

who had spent time overseas in time of war.

I had never been overseas

and had definitely never seen the face of war or been parted

from my children for month after month after month.

I had no clue what it was like to really fight or defend.

He gave me security and a sense of safety,

and I gave him a care package.

He sacrificed his comfort and wellbeing,

faced sleepless nights in cold places of

desolation that I cannot even imagine,

far from his family and loved ones,

and seen his friend’s face in immeasurable pain,

and I, in turn, presented him with a care package.

Here is your freedom, he said,

and here is pride in the land that you love.

And here is your care package, I replied,

which I bought this weekend at Wal-Mart.

Here is my blood, sweat and tears, sleepless nights, dirt and grit,

and hell unknown to you, he whispered,

and here, I said, is the care package I bought at Wal-Mart.

And here, I wish to say to him now,

is a smaller gift—the honest truth

that you can never repay a soldier,

but the rueful admission that when I send a care package overseas,

I’m sure as I can be that this square, brown

care package that I bought at Wal-Mart

 is not enough to make us even.