My First Love Was a U.S. Marine—Then He Disappeared Without a Trace

Every year on February 22, I did the same thing before I allowed the day to begin.

I’d kneel in front of the cedar chest at the foot of my bed, lift the lid, and take out Elias’s U.S. Marine uniform with the kind of care you reserve for something living. I’d press it to my chest and breathe in, chasing a familiar scent that shouldn’t have been there after all this time.

Cloth doesn’t hold a person’s presence for decades.

But love and loss don’t follow rules. Grief doesn’t ask permission. And somehow, every year, that uniform felt like the closest thing I had to him.