You're safe now.

It is a gift in life to tell one, and mean it, “You’re safe now.”  Even if you have to tell her repeatedly, because the terror she just fled is the stuff of nightmares or bad tv.

 

You’re safe now.

Your home won’t be the same anymore, I can’t promise that.  Tonight you’ll stay with family.

But you’re safe now.

The man who just shattered your world is only a few car lengths away, but we are here.  And he is going away.

You’re safe now.

Tomorrow you’ll call for repairs, and sweep up broken glass, and question if you still have dignity after tonight.

But, you’re safe now.  And you handled yourself better than most.  And you made an entire squad come together and perform, and feel like a difference was made in somebody’s life, because sometimes the bogeyman is real.

But tonight, after all that, you are safe.  And it is a privilege to be the one that gets to tell you.

Humbling is looking at the notes you jotted down in preparation for a promotional exam, and realizing that nowhere did you write down the word,"SURVIVE."  Dear past self - you'll pass the test, and realize that the one day of testing is nothing compared to the challenge of being responsible for a group of adults.  Just slow down, breathe, and SURVIVE.  Nobody really cares what you said on that oral board, and I guarantee nobody remembers that speech you opened with.  And dear past self: you know how you keep telling your five year old to 'Make good choices?'  Just do that everyday.  I promise it'll work out.

Smells

It's funny sometimes to have a memory triggered by a smell.  Today I reached into the passenger seat of my patrol car to throw some bags in, and was hit hard by a smell from my childhood.  It was the smell of my dad's patrol car.  I couldn't describe it, and I didn't even really remember it, but the instant I leaned in my car I was transported back to my childhood.  It must be some mix of worn out brakes, firearms, leather gear, dirt, adrenaline and whatever else lingers around a police car.

I rode in my dad's car every single chance I could.  I went to work with him on almost every single school holiday, several times a summer, and whenever I could badger my way in.  I sat through community meetings, I hung out with dispatchers, I was babysat by the precinct staff, I went on calls and traffic stops.

As an adult now I find it crazy; how did he get away with always having a kid in tow?  Was it a precinct joke?  There goes the Captain, Major and then Chief with one of his kids in tow again.  Maybe nobody questions the boss?

I remember his goal of introducing me to every strong female officer in his agency, women who to this day still mentor me.

But mostly I remember the smell of that car, driving all over the place, and my dad and I talking nonstop during our time together.  Of all the lessons I try to carry over to my own children, it's that my parents always talked and listened to us.  And that feeling, of being respected and loved and listened to, is where I went today when I was transported back to my dad's patrol car. 

Safety Talks and Showing Off

When I was a kid, I called 911.  And then I promptly hung up, ran away, and hid in my room when our phone started ringing almost immediately.  I hid as I listened to my dad explain to the dispatcher that everything was fine, he was actually an off-duty officer, and he had a sneaking suspicion that the little girl who had just run through the house to hide in her room was somehow related to the mysterious call. 

And that dang call was brought up every year, starting with the time he came and did a safety talk for my kindergarten class.  It was his opener for years and years of safety talks.  He'd break the ice with kids, afraid of this very tall man in a uniform, by telling them that even his own daughter hung up on the 911 dispatcher. 

I have done a lot of safety talks for kids and yes, even I have told this story.  But in a couple of weeks I get to do my very first safety talk, in uniform, to my own child's class.  I have been worrying more than usual, rehearsing and planning, excited to let my two worlds collide while my kid still thinks I'm cool.  I'm pretty sure in about a decade, I won't be allowed to set foot anywhere near her school campus let alone her classroom in my uniform. 

So I am ready to let myself be embarrassed once more, at my own doing, with a big dose of gratitude that my daughter hasn't yet figured out that if you hang up on the dispatcher, they really do call right back.

Is it worth it?

Is it, really?  This career I've craved since childhood. 
The hours spent riding in my dad's patrol car.  Listening to the radio crackle.  Loving every code run.

Once, I remember a fear so pure.  The contact was a disabled vehicle, but I knew that man was not right.  I knew that he was planning something wrong until he looked and saw me in the car, a little girl in a patrol car.  He paused, he turned, and we left.  My dad asked me if I had felt it.  I said that man was going to hurt you.  And he said yes, he was.  Always trust that feeling he said.  Always.

So I thought I knew what I was getting into.  Over a decade now, of ups and downs.  Ups so high I thought I'd never come down from the adrenaline.  Downs that made me think I knew fear. 

I remember standing there, with four coffins in front of me, touching my belly and wishing I could still be in my uniform that no longer fit.  I thought I was becoming a mother but really I was just wanting to be back on the road. 

And then my first child came, with those coffins still on my mind, and I started to understand what motherhood really was.  And the calls felt like slaps on the face.  Things that never touched me caused real pain.  Calls I'd handled for years made me come home and wake up a baby and hold her, just hold her. 

It was a transition, and a hard one, but it left me recommitted and proud and determined to show her what a warrior is.  And I found a balance; never all in balance, but a balance that worked for a while.  The fear could go up on a shelf for a bit each day.  For the fear of a mother is something that does not go away I learned.

And then more coffins.  And another baby.  And another journey, now familiar, to recommit and rise to the challenge.

And then more coffins.  And now a promotion.  And now the journey is different.  It's a battle now, of allegiances.  To men that rely on me for leadership.  To children who need a mommy.  To myself, in need of that warrior.  To a husband that has never left my side.

And I sit at this crossroads yet again, wondering if it is worth it.  Wondering if it is taking the easy way out to go find another job, one with a desk and work that is done in the daylight. 

But I think it is worth it.  At least today, I decide that it is.  And I head back in.  I strap on my armor, I pray for my family home in their beds.   I pray for my men to go home safe.  I get my coffee in a shop full of windows and I never relax until I am back in my car and moving, because it is worth it and I don't want to be in one of those coffins.  Not today. 

F* the Police!!

I usually don't mention what I do to strangers, but the girls at my favorite coffee stop know I work nights and stop in for a lot of caffeine late in the evening. 

The other day a young, new barista asked what I do and without thinking I said that I was a police officer.  My guard was down, I didn't assess, I figured I didn't need to worry about my safety at that moment.

She sighed.  Oh, I love the police.  I have an uncle, some friends and other family that are all police officers or deputies. 

I sighed.  Phew.  This wouldn't be awkward.  I thought.

She went on.  Sometimes it's really weird though, a lot of people my age don't like cops.  It's so strange to be at a party chanting "Fuck the Police!" with everyone and then go home and stay at a deputy's house that night with family.  I feel bad, you know?

Judging by the look on her face, I think she got the look on my face.  I said I don't understand why people say things if they don't believe them.  I said maybe it's hard to stand up to your friends.  I told her I have small children and they still like police officers.  I said it's really hard if the people you love don't have the ability to stand up for their own family, and I hope my kids can at least stand up for me someday. 

And I politely took my coffee rather than dumping it on her coffee stand. 

Where is the happy? 

It's in a shift briefing that goes long because we watch silly cop videos.

It's on a traffic stop where you stand on the side of the road and giggle because you couldn't write this stuff if you tried.

It's at a retirement party where you see someone who didn't just do it right, they did it right for decades and now they get to go reap the benefits of that work.

It's a station tour where a bunch of little scouts stare at you in awe and and all raise their hand at once as they jump up and down and grin. 

It's the prank war that leaves your entire desk wrapped in foil and gives you a stomach-ache from laughing so hard. 

It's watching your best friend get promoted and watching her daughter concentrate so hard to get that gold badge just right on her shirt. 

It's a discussion at 4am where you realize the people in that room with you would back you up on the worst day of your career and laugh with you on the best day.

It's there, and it keeps you going.  Just like the little blog where sometimes you only deposit the sad and hard because they need a place to go so you can make room for the happy when it appears. 

I hid a pair of shoes.

They were hand-me-downs.  Very cute.  My youngest already loved them, even though they didn’t really fit. 

I felt a little bad.  She has so many shoes though, and won’t even notice these are gone.

But I will notice, and I will breathe deeper once I don’t have to look at them.  I’m not ready. 

Last week I looked in a paper bag.  Two pairs of shoes and a blankie. The pattern on that blanket matches the pattern of jammies my daughter slept in last night.  It's one of the mass produced but adorable ones we all have.  It felt like a punch in the gut. 

The shoes in the bag.  One pair belonged to little feet that will never run again.  And one pair to a big sister who will probably never forget what she heard and saw that day.  A family destroyed.  A driver’s life ruined.  So many people devastated. 

I stayed away from the scene all shift so I didn’t have to see.  Another team handled it, and handled it well.   I thought I’d be fine.  But I saw that bag at the station and I looked inside and that was enough.  I came home and went in my daughter’s room and picked up those shoes and tucked them away in a closet until I can look at them again.  And I climbed into bed and my husband held me until I could breathe again.

And today I decided not to hide the jammies, because my oldest and my niece wore them too.  And you can't hide it all away.   

There is an odd familiarity sometimes when you work in the same area for over a decade.  As you walk through a park you remember the random interactions; with kids, with adults, with criminals, with victims.

You walk past the gazebo that to you, is the place you ran past once trying to find a partner in a foot pursuit who was calling for help on the radio but couldn't say where he was.  To the family approaching it's a nice shady spot to set up homebase for the afternoon at the park.

On a foot patrol behind a building you find freshly laid beauty bark and spiderwebs that are so wrapped up around your hair and face that it's clear nobody has cut through there for a while.  But what you see is the homeless camp that filled this spot two years ago, with dozens of beer cans, cigarette butts, rain smeared cardboard with handwritten pleas for cash, and remnants of a person's life.   

Sometimes it's a dirty feeling.  To drive around this beautiful place and know some of its secrets.  To notice the things the other people don't notice.  It used to be titillating but sometimes it's just numbing. 

And sometimes it is just a sad feeling.  To realize not just what you know, but what you've forgotten.  Tonight, driving through a parking lot you've been through periodically through the years, and realizing that this was the lot.  This lot, many years ago, was when you watched someone die.  It was a medical issue, or rather a host of medical issues, from a hard life.  A coworker, concerned about someone sleeping in his car, made a call.  And you got there too late.  And you were by yourself at his car when he looked right at you and you realized there was nothing.  By the time backup and the fire crew were there....they tried, but there was nothing.

The fire crews - first helpful, reassuring that this result was determined long before your arrival.  Then they were frustrated, wanting to leave the scene to get their rig back into service instead of being the resting place for a man who probably hadn't even realized the efforts that took place.  It was hours it felt like, and maybe was, until the medical examiner arrived.  And it wasn't until that morning, climbing into bed, that it hit you.  You watched someone die.

This wasn't talked about.  The bodies were expected.  The injured were expected.  But to take part in that moment, that final moment, that wasn't talked about.  And so years later, you are there at night, driving through the parking lot nonchalantly, until suddenly the memories were there again, and you realized where you were.

And you realized that where you are today is not the same person.  And you never would be the same person.  Because now you're a person that can go for years without thinking of this death until one night some random thought jumps up and you realize the extent of all of these moments that you've seen must be greater than you realized, if this moment can go away for so many years.  And that's ok.  Maybe it's even good.  Because you've also replaced that memory with others.  Better ones.  And you like who you are today, even if sometimes you miss that person long ago. 

But that odd familiarity, it's still there.  And for a while, that parking lot's meaning won't be lost.  You'll probably do some extra area patrols in the coming weeks, and maybe try to make some sense of things.  You won't succeed, but you feel like you owe it to his memory.

Bedtime
She stills my heart, my thoughts, my world.
So when she asks me to snuggle I say yes.
This odd stage, weeks away from five. So wise but so innocent. Sleep makes her look so small when during the day she dances and runs and creates and fills every space.
Tonight we talk about dancing on pointe and flowers and then 
bad guys.

If a bad guy breaks in, how will you protect me?

And I curse the TV, the snippets of talk radio she hears before I remember to turn on music only. Why does she know this?

I tell her that we lock the door and she sighs; she asks again -I said break in, mom. And I tell her Papa and I would stop this bad guy, we'd get her and her sister out. She thinks. And thinks.

She says, you might need to use your gun mom. And I say yes, I might.

But I lead her down a path where we talk about bad guys. Most are not that bad. They just make mistakes. We talk about setting examples and helping bad guys be good. And she snuggles in tight and falls asleep.

And I don't. I think of when she'll learn someday about monsters. The real ones. The ones that ruin families like the Andersons in Carnation. The ones that stop a sergeant from ever coming home in Idaho. So I stay up and cuddle her tiny being and pray...
and
She stills my heart, my thoughts, my world.