Back in October 2024, I completed an Eagle Scout project 36 years in the making.
A near-fatal car accident derailed my Eagle Scout project in December of 1988. Still in the hospital, I asked my parents to request an extension since I would be turning 18 soon and would be too old to earn the award.
I was told the request was denied. In all likelihood, my parents never submitted that request.
As a result, my childhood dream of becoming an Eagle Scout came to an end, just one service project short of completion.
Last year, I decided to finally complete that project by cleaning a cemetery in Newington, CT, where my family and I live.
It was the same project I had planned before going head-first through a windshield on a snowy afternoon.
Nearly 50 friends, neighbors, strangers, students, and Scouts from Clara and Charlie’s troop came to help me clean the moss, lichen, and dirt from headstones. We spent most of the day working hard and having fun. I hoped that by completing the project, I might finally find some relief from the regret I have felt all my life.
I wanted to be an Eagle Scout more than anything. Scouting meant the world to me. Coming so close — the completion of a simple service project — only to miss out because of a head-on collision one day before Christmas has been a difficult pill to swallow.
The biggest regret of my life.
Completing my service project that day was a joy. Having my family alongside me made it all the better. Though the regret still lingers and the desire to become an Eagle Scout still burns bright, it was a good day that I hoped would eventually bring me some peace.
Then something unexpected happened.
Aaron Derr, a writer for Scouting’s official online magazine, found out about my project through a friend and wrote an article about my efforts.
On the day it was published, I found a gift bag and a card on my front stoop. When I opened it, I found a note inside from a man named Wade.
It read:
Dear Matthew,
I was touched by the wonderful words, written about you, by Aaron Derr. I posted my comments online.
Please accept my Eagle Scout Award (1971). I have no child to pass it on to. You deserve it now, and it gives me great joy to leave it with you.
As for your life, you were blessed by the greatest Scout of all Scouts.
God Bless you and your family.
Wade
Inside the bag was a small, black case. In that case was Wade’s Eagle Scout medal, pin, and tie clip — all awarded to him in the same year I was born.
Needless to say, I wept.
I wept a lot.
I was also sure that I could not accept such an incredible gift. Having dreamed of becoming an Eagle Scout all my life, I couldn’t think about accepting another man’s award.
So I wrote to Wade, thanking him for his generosity and telling him how much his gesture meant to me. I also explained how I felt wrong about keeping his award and insisted he allow me to return it.
Wade would have none of it. He wrote back, insisting I keep it and offering to take a walk with me once the weather improves.
It turns out Wade was once a pole vaulter, too, like me.
We have a lot in common.
So, sitting on my desk at this very moment is an Eagle medal, still in its case, waiting for the day I will try again to return this award to the man who earned it. I suspect I will return home with the award, which I will cherish always.
When I decided to complete my Eagle Scout project 36 years after I first began it, I had hoped to rid myself of some of my regrets for an unfinished job and a dream deferred.
Instead, I found kindness, generosity, and a spirit of brotherhood that I never expected.
Life can sometimes offer us the most glorious of surprises.
I’ve also had several people inform me that, given my circumstances, a path to Eagle Scout might still be available to me, and some have already petitioned Scouting leaders to consider my case.
I may pursue that route someday, but not until I walk into the woods with a man who did something unthinkably kind and miraculously generous for me first.
I can’t wait to shake his hand and thank him personally for what he has done for me.
