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Growing up in a military family taught me that every moment in life counts. When my dad was home, I'd spend every moment sitting as close to where he was as possible.

As I grew older, I began to realize that military dads don't always get to experience the everyday stuff that most non-military dads get to experience. So my brother and I began to keep a memory box for our dad, even when he wasn't away from us. In this box we'd place school work we were proud of, drawings of things that told stories only my brother understood and notes about our day.

My mother would wrap the box and send it to my dad where ever he was. If he was home, she'd mail it to his job and he'd once again hear his name at mail call. As I grew up and went away to college it became harder to contribute to the memory box and even harder still after I married and moved away.
It was one day, while trying to come up with something for my own military husband's Father's Day gift that I remembered the memory box. I ask each daughter to bring five things they wanted to put in the box. I put those fifteen things in a box and sent them to him. Then we did one for my dad. I did not specify what they were to bring, so I got leaves, rocks, candy, poems, etc. Anything the girls wanted to give to their dad or Opa. I shudder to think about what the cookie looked like when it got to Honduras.

The next year I gave each girl a disposable camera at the beginning of the year, with instructions that the pictures were to be given as Father's day presents. A week prior to the holiday we sat down and made little booklets with stories about each picture. I allowed each girl to color and draw, as well as write the story. On the front page, beneath the title was a picture of the person who "wrote" the book.

The next year the girls came up with a coupon booklet, hand made, that promised things like breakfast in bed, shining his boots, letting him sleep late on the weekend and my personal favorite, time alone with mommy. They also did his chores for a week, like taking out the trash, sweeping the sidewalks, etc.

It was fun to watch my girls grow up into individual women and still be able to blend their styles to come up with a present from the heart for Dad and Opa. One year I traced their hands and glued them to construction paper and framed it in a dollar store frame.

I was glad to find that my dad never got rid of any of these things. After he died we found them, each box, in its own place on a shelf in the shed behind the house. In it were also notes from my mother that she'd added to each box and notes from my dad that recorded each time I called or visited. These gifts never cost more than twenty dollars, when multiplied by three, but the sentimental value is priceless.

Learn more about this author, Rupert Flagg.
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