It was 27 years ago and the road trip of my life. I remember my husband and I overslept that day. My parents fed us breakfast, helped us pack the car and pushed us out the door so swiftly that I didn’t even have time to think about the fact that I was about to leave home.
It was a fourteen hour drive from the state where I was living with my parents to the state where my husband and I would be begin our married life. I don’t remember where we stopped or what we talked about. What I do remember was realizing that I would have to unpack, write thank you notes for wedding gifts and find a job because I was finally a grown up.
Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?
My grandma went to Rome in 1973. She brought home a gold cross and necklace for me that was blessed by Pope Paul VI. It was a connection to God and to my grandmother and my most cherished material possession.
On September 1, 2009 a 17 year old boy who lived around the block from us thought it was a good idea to move our grill to use it to climb up and enter our second floor bedroom window to burglarize our home. He stole that necklace, other jewelry and some electronics and cash. My then 11 year old son came home from school to discover that our home had been burglarized. Fortunately the burglar was long gone by the time my son returned home from school.
The burglar and his counterpart did get busted, tried as adults and punished. It took 16 months to go to court. Fortunately the judge made a fool out of him in the courtroom.
The punishment those boys received was bullshit probation and will never suffice the emotional damage that was done to my husband and I and our two children. It gave us an added sense of awareness that only victims of a crime could have.
My grandma passed away four months after the burglary. She had dementia so she never knew about the necklace being stolen. I know she would be more concerned about our safety than the necklace though.
The burgler is living his best life as if nothing happened. I pray that karma finds him.
thatnursewrites 