I entered the garage code and told my lungs to slow down, thinking that I had better have the ability for trigger control, slow is smooth and smooth is fast, early morning birds chirping, call in the big city. The roll up door click-click-clacked up and the headlights finally, finally of my backup careened down the street and parked idly by. We entered. Police, sound off guns and yelling and trigger discipline and the early morning light before sunrise, how beautiful it is. And how innocent. The people have not even started jogging yet. A door to kick in, and the voices behind it. I could not, cannot, help thinking about what I would do if the people behind the door had my last name (maiden or otherwise). You kick it in, you yell, you point your gun, you counter flesh with flesh and God's General smiles. You go in. Because if it wa your sister, your dad, you would not wait for SWAT. For anything. Sometimes your heart can't hold your soul. You do what you have to, and analyze it later. Send a postcard to yourself from time to time to remember that YOU are not the island; it's just a place they take mail. And a deep breath and back out on patrol, come what may.
One late summer evening with my family. With the "peepers" violently singing in the distance. One more time to drink and eat and laugh and bullshit and really rejoice in this chaotic comedy. No trip to the Caribbean, no fancy steak dinner, not even any reckoning. My last day would be spent surrounded by my amazing family, drinking beer, listening to dad tell the hairlip joke for the hundredth time. May everyone be so blessed to have a life so commonplace yet so full of love. <3
