Santa vs a Marine

Something interesting happened today. Stay with me for a minute because this may take a minute (and more than a little sensitivity) to explain.

Before Amy and I started dating, Amy's brother, Eric, died while in the Marines. In fact, Jude's name is in honor to him as Eric's middle name was Jude. Jude knows him only by a few pictures and many of those pictures are of him in his dress uniform. Obviously, everytime he sees a Marine he says they look like Uncle Eric.

Anyway, this afternoon we head out for Kohl's for some shopping. In the lot, a truck for toys for tots is there. We decide to pick up some toys to donate and go over to see the Marines. It was a nice little set-up: Santa was there, someone was taking poloroids of the kids with Santa and giving them out for free, an elf making balloons for the kids, a little train making laps around the parking lot and a couple Marines in their dress uniforms receiving the donated toys. Kerrigan wants to go see Santa while Jude was a bit shy and didn't want to. A woman took a poloroid of Kerrigan giving a hug to Santa so I asked Jude if he wanted a picture with a Marine instead, to which he smiled and said 'yes.' The Marines were great and were so nice to Jude and took a great picture with him. They said it was the first time a kid wanted to be with them rather than Santa.

Amy cried and Santa let out a comical comment about getting passed up for a Marine, to which we all laughed. Jude may not know how special that moment was right now, but I'm glad we got a picture. It's something Amy and I will never forget.

Miss you, Rick. As far as I'm concerned this is a picture of Jude with you.

Merry Christmas.