They took my journal. They took my healthy snacks. They took my phone. All while I worked out at 6:45 a.m. I have so many questions: Did they think my lunch bag was a purse? Did they use that safety tool from ‘As Seen on TV’ to break my window? Why was my car targeted?
I’m still finding tiny cubes of broken glass in the car. The police officer used his special gloves and brush to kindly wipe off the seat for me, and a car wash vacuum sucked most of the remaining bits away, but as I find remnants of glass I’m reminded of what the thieves stole from me.
The smash and grab happened just three weeks after purchasing that car and a mere month after my father’s death. The timing of this unexpected invasion further disrupted my already fragile sense of security.
Flash back to a Friday afternoon last November when my brother the doctor texted me, “I need to talk to you.” I called him from the parking lot of my apartment complex. I heard the words so many others hear about their loved ones – the cancer had metastasized to the lungs. Barring a miracle, our dad was dying.
I couldn’t breathe as I made my way to my apartment door. Once inside, the tears came hard and fast. I crumpled into my bed, doubled over as months of worry escaped in guttural cries and tears.
Over the next four months, I swallowed my tears and navigated trips from South Carolina to Missouri to Tennessee and back. To help my mom and dad, yes, but mostly to stay busy and try to soothe the ache of losing him.
This time it was a different thief shaking my foundation. Cancer smashed the glass of my secure world leaving little shards of grief everywhere I turned. They prick me at the oddest times. One shard exposes anger and another tears. Most leave me sitting in thick clouds of sadness.
The journal that chronicled my devastating loss was in the lunch bag stolen from my car. I hadn’t even had time to process cancer’s own smash and grab before a similar invasion took place in the gym’s parking lot.
I grieve the immense loss of my dad. As a writer, I also grieve the loss of the journal that helped me through his death. It helps to know that grief is universal. Not one of us is immune to loss. I hold on to that.
Life’s a journey. Pay attention.
