The deployment begins

So my brother, Scott deployed this morning on his 4 month tour aboard the USNS Mercy. I surely thought I'd be able to handle it, but seeing how it affected Matthew (my nephew) got me all choked up inside. It's going to be an interesting summer without him here. Most of my friends on the island are also part of this deployment, so I'll also have the entire summer with mostly no friends...the concept is a little scary to me. We shall see how it all goes.