Perspective

As you may or may not know my house was robbed last Wednesday. I've known many, many people that have had their homes invaded by thieves and they aptly describe their emotions just as I would. It is awful to feel so violated. The first reaction is one of astonishment that this has happened to me! My home is my safe place, my haven, my personal space, who would have the nerve to cross my threshold and help themselves to my possessions. Possessions that I value and am comforted by, not because of their monetary value but because of the memories that I have been saving up. I can look at certain possessions and recall happier times, or tender moments, or places I have visited. Possessions that help me reach back to the past and relive some of the experiences that I have had. Sort of a connection collection, so to speak.

Shakespeare said, "He who steals my purse, steals trash" he also said, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." Last year when a tornado hit a small rural area of Kentucky, they showed a woman on the nightly news that was standing in front of what had just hours earlier been her trailer home. She was crying and said." they say it is just junk, but it is MY junk! "

Each of us value different things. Among the things stolen from me was an article that Doc brought home to me when he got out of the Army after WWII. He told the story about how his battalion had liberated a small village in Italy that was near one of the German Concentration camps that they had captured. The village people took the Americans into their homes in thanksgiving for their liberation. An old Italian woman gave Doc a hand tooled cameo necklace to bring home to me. She had no money but wanted him to take something for giving them back their freedom.

The necklace had no clasp so I could never wear it but the cameos were exquisite and it was valuable to us because of what it represented. There were a few other items, a necklace that I got while visiting the Vatican, it had the Pieta on one side of the pendant and it was one of the items that Pope John Paul II had blessed, There was a gold coin on a gold chain that my grandchildren had given me one Christmas and also the gold locket and chain that Doc had given me on our 1st wedding anniversary 67 years ago. There were lots of other pieces of jewelry but those four were the irreplaceable items that I feel the most.

My home was just one of many that were broken into this past week. A woman that I knew back years ago but hadn't seen for many years, called me today and she had heard that I had been robbed and she wanted to share her experience also. She was enraged and resorted to calling the perp some very crude names and gave some ideas of what she would do to him if she ever got her hands on him. She vowed to press charges and see to it that they ,"put his sorry #&^@ in jail." She asked what action I had taken and proceeded to tell me that she calls the detectives at least twice a day and they don't always call her back. She said she wants her things back and she is not going to let up on the police until they get her things for her! She said if they don't have them back by next week she is calling Chief White and telling him that it is his job to see that our homes are safe and he needs to see to it that the police are doing what we are paying them to do!!! Vituperative language was sprinkled all through this tirade. She then listed some of the items that were missing but the one that she is going bonkers over is Billy Ray Cyrus' git tar 'pick that he gave her once when she saw him in concert. He had little Hannah Montana with him at the concert and he took her on stage to sing with him. She was only three and by d... she wants that 'gitar 'pick back. Her little granddaughter was just asking the other day if she could have the 'git tar' pick some day, and now it's gone! Some body's going to pay for this big time!! Whew!

I will see what happens next, I'm hoping the guy is apprehended before he gets rid of all the swag, so that I may get some things back. They are not worth thousands of dollars but to me they are worth a fortune.

The woman on the phone had one final question for me before she hung up; "Did they get in your panty drawer?" Ciao.