Whispering, you still hear.

Noticing my passing reflection in the window glass, it strikes me how much I look like my Bohemian grandfather. The long face and nose, high cheekbones and glacial eyes squinting against the sun, taking in the outside world and all its beauty. It occurs to me that body and soul are like a jigsaw puzzle of my ancestry; mother's hands, father's determination, grandfather's laugh, and the pride that so many generations have left me by giving me their name.

The good news came in like a tidal wave and for nearly a whole day I rode the tide above my terrestrial confines. I couldn't have realized how much of a relief it would be to just know concretely. No more of the "she's just part-time" to contextualize my reason for being. No more needing to qualify my purpose. I have a home now, and soon, a new oath, and I have never been as grateful for anything in my life. How important and meaningful things become when they're taken away -- you spend all of your energy working to get back to where you left off, and when you make the circuitous loop you can finally take a step back and see just how much strength you found along the way. Who carried you and to whom you offered your prayers. These things we only learn about ourselves during the trials.

Blessed Father, thank You for the many blessings that You have bestowed upon me. Thank You for giving me another chance, and for believing in me especially during the dark moments when I couldn't find the strength to believe in myself. May I ever be worthy of serving You, may I strive everyday to carry out Your mission here, as You do in Your realm. In all ways.... I am so incredibly thankful.

Lazy Sunday.

A shell with calcified outer layers turned into the wind, feet dug strongly into the sand, waiting out the storm. It's what remains inside that counts, you tell yourself. I am sometimes ashamed of my incredulity of being led around by leash and collar. As if I am being denied some birthright, as if there was some mix-up and at the front door they told me to go around to the service entrance. My body shakes and my will tries to force it out. Keep your head down and remember that being humble is being close to God. There is absolutely nothing in this world that you are entitled to, not even your own skin and bones.

Remember the promises that you want to keep to yourself. Remember where you would like to be in a month, in two months, and get there. There is no way that anyone or thing can stop you, once you've made up your mind. Decide, and the body follows.

Going, going, gone.

A deep breath in. The wave of anxiety washes over and you take a moment amidst the bedlam to scan the body, going through your mental checklist, to find the source of the accumulated worry and doubt. What is there left to do, what other hurtles to clear, tunnels to crawl through. The scan reveals nothing and just for a moment the mind resolves itself into a tenuous truce with the body, keeping frayed nerve endings and tired muscles at bay until the next wave breaks. The timing of it is random and unquantifiable. And more than anything the body, the mind, the weary heart needs rest. You traded in the frantic mental game of four months for an Olympic pace of work, work, work, and it takes its toll. Like treading water in the tank when we had to pass a heavy brick around in a circle without failing. You complete your task because the mind tells the body there is no other choice, but there is a part of you that wonders which would be the first to give in; the mind or the body. And what is the part that holds the two together in such a punishing pact?

Today I hurled myself down into the rocks and dirt and held the plastic and metal frame of the rifle to my face and chest in a lover's embrace. I pulled the stock into my chin and splayed my legs as if it was a position my body was accustomed to. Left eye closed, right eye focused on the front sight and the blurry target 150 yards down range I felt my lungs slow down and my heart rate taper. In the curve of breathing after each exhalation my finger slowly squeezed back towards the fleshy pad of my thumb until with a thwack the round loosed itself from the barrel and found its home beyond the paper and into a clump of earth. I imagined Beslan, and Columbine, and Israel, and I realized that there are those among us who choose to act not out of a sense of duty, but because it is all that makes sense in such chaos. My finger slowly released itself forward again until it felt the trigger reset click and in the shallow of the next exhalation the dance repeated itself and I reminded myself that yes, I am a gunfighter. Rifle, hands, sights, elbows, knees, breath, heart, all wound together there among the rock and debris and wind. I felt the presence of my grandfather, and my father, and all the brave souls who answered the call before me, as I loosed ten more rounds downrange.

We have to get our minds right, he said. We have to be prepared for what our job demands of us. Amen, I thought. The sun beat down on my black t-shirt as I locked the rifle open and climbed to my feet, up off of the rock and dirt. Later we joked about the short autobiography that I was required to write, and he told me to be sure I included that I aimed to be the first female on SWAT. I laughed my distrustful laugh as I looked into his eyes and saw a very familiar mischievous glint shining back. If only.

Mixed messages

The look on her face and that there was nothing I could do, or say, or think to make it better. The helpless feeling of being the adult, of being the one she sought and of knowing how important the position I had was. Of just being there, of just being safe.

I picked my cup up and drank the water slowly. My soul is parched. I am tired. But I'm not supposed to rest, not yet. I am tired of being the only one. Tired of cleaning up messes all day long, tired of starting over, of always starting over. My body complains but the mind refuses to listen. To acquiesce. What else is there but to go into the hills to pray. And remind yourself to expect nothing.

What does Jesus do while we are in the storm? You'll love this. He prays for us... So where does that leave us? While Jesus is praying and we are in the storm, what are we to do? Simple. We do what the disciples did. We row... Much of this life is spent rowing... Getting out of bed. Fixing lunches.... More struggle than strut.

And you tell yourself over and over the one lesson that you forgot more often than remember, but need more frequently than anything else. That the only mind you can understand is your own. The only truth needing to be claimed, yours. Forget all the over-analyzing and strategics, your life is already too full. One foot in front of the other, slowly you climb the mountain.

At my side

It was that he sent the message to me, and the timing of it. Contemplating mortality, the fragility of going about our business every day. Flesh and bone. It was a cryptic message, the text made more meaningful for its truncation. It reminded me of being a very small kid and spending afternoons with him watching old westerns on TV, drinking mugs of heated milk with just a hint of coffee. I used to imagine that he was the tall, imposing cowboy with the white hat and that I was the quiet, observant child in the background, waiting for the chance to ride next to him.

And now at the meetings we sit together. We know the same old-timers, share the same lexicon, and narrow our eyes the same way when scrutinizing the outside world. Full circle. And I am grateful for every moment. He is my hero and it was no lie when I told the background investigator that everyday I try to live up to the name that he gave me. Lord, let me be worthy.

On a walk today I contemplated what it is to be honorable in a world that has no scale for morality. I wondered who you would call if it was the middle of the night and you needed help now. I wondered who I would call and I envisioned myself as Leonidas, walking towards home with only a broken spear, knowing full well that no obstacle could hinder my steps. I wondered how many others out there have no insurance policy because failure is so remote and unlikely it doesn't even make it into the pondering. Not that it's ego, but more like an unwavering faith in the will, and that with God one can never be defeated.

Funny how a tender embrace the morning after can change the way the world looks.

An echo

I read somewhere that God gave Job trials, not tests. I understood and appreciated the difference immediately when I saw the words next to each other. Instead of seeming like an unfortunate flesh-and-bones man, Job became to me a sort of Olympian, a warrior given the gift of a hard-fought faith. Battle tested. I like to think of the difference between the two words lately, when the hole in the pit of my stomach weighs me down and my eyes betray me with their watering.

I never wanted it to be easy, I remind myself. I know that I am not able to accept achievement if there was no great sacrifice on my part for the attaining. I listen to my friends on our shared channel, several miles to the south, and when the heartache shortens my breath I thank God for the chance to embody humility. When I am confronted by another obstacle in my path, I am thankful for the lesson in patience and diligence. I remember, not always but more often now, that my job is not to prove myself to anyone at all; there are no tests to be passed. My job is simply to remain true to my self and my calling throughout the trials, having full confidence that I will come out the other side whole, hard-fought faith in hand for always.

There is only one way, and that is through the hill. And you never thought it would be easy.

Intermission

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Moment by moment, I ready myself.

Of all days...

I am your Shield. No buffets of the world can harm you. Feel that between you and all scorn and indignity is a strong shield. Practice feeling this until nothing has the power to spoil the inward peace. Then indeed a marvelous victory shall be won.
You wonder sometimes why you are permitted to make mistakes in your choice when you sought so truly to do My Will in the matter.

To that I say it was no mistake...All your lessons cannot be learned without difficulty, and this was needed to teach you a lesson. Not to him who walks on, with no obstacles in his way, but to him that overcometh is the promise given.

So attain peace quickly in your surroundings, as well as in your hearts, learn your lesson quickly. And the overcoming is never the overcoming of the one who troubled you, but the overcoming of the weaknesses and wrong in your own nature, aroused by such a one.

No lower standard than My Standard shall be yours. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

My best friend.

She reads my mind and sends me pieces of clarity when I am most in need. Yesterday;

I am thy shield. Have no fear. You must know that "All is well." I will never let anyone do to you other than My Will for you. I can see the future. I can read men's hearts; I know better than you what you need. Trust Me absolutely. You are not at the mercy of Fate, or buffeted about by others. You are being led in a very definite way, and others, who do not serve your purpose, are being moved out of your Path by Me. Go very quietly, very gently. All is for the very best for you. It was out of the depths that David cried unto Me, and I heard his voice. All is well.

A cold and windy Sunday a week ago, a long and painful respite between trials. She was sitting on the grass, I standing next to her, I looked down and was struck by how much she looked like me. Her eyes were my eyes. Or was it I that looked like her? Face fixed with the focus of a warrior, mind given over to St. Michael, and the call to duty that waits ahead. Painfully ahead. There is no choice but to succeed. She looked like all of those pre-alarm early mornings at OSP when I would stare at the ceiling, steeling myself for the day. She looked like a mixture of stoicism and grace, ferocity and tenderness. A double-edged sword, the way the Romans must have looked as they marched to battle, hearts full of Socrates.

In the interview today I couldn't help but let my mind wander to my memories of the previous job. The ghosts haunt me less frequently now, but they remind me of my place from time to time. I thought of all the confessions, and the usually more embellished justifications. All of the catharsis and soul-purging that happened in the backseat of my cruiser, while I listened, and nodded my head, and prayed and offered up my faith with each rider. I always had a sense, doing my job, that God had passed through me, and that maybe for a moment there, just for a moment, God was me.

And she knows exactly what I mean, because she has felt God coarse through her arteries, felt God's presence pass through her fingertips in a far more intimate way than I ever have. And still she goes quietly, and gently, with a humbleness that could test even the most saintly.

And every night as I pray I give thanks for having been so blessed to know her.

Thank You.

The path stretched on for miles and lazily followed the swollen banks of a flooded river, the current furiously churning with the Ides of March. The day's cold front had excoriated every last cloud from the sky, so that the sun washed over us in uninhibited streams. The air clung to winter's frost, but the sun would have none of it, and radiated its heat back up through my toes from the warmed asphalt. We walked for hours and it was as if I stayed just one pace behind, the constant dialogue in my mind drawing correlations and taking measurements.

The birds called to each other from the tree tops, the wind scattered the forest's carpet of decaying leaves and my mind was consumed with the memory of another walk, around a lake, seemingly ages ago, and the perfection that can be contained in the simplest of moments when you line yourself up with the universe's desires. When you stop over-thinking and allow yourself to just. be. happy.

Mid-conversation at lunch my ears perked up and, unbelievably, our honorable mention song came on over the restaurant's speakers. Over the din of the lunch rush and the cackling of the ladies at the next table I was transported to another place. An elevator, the same song coming on, and me being amazed and explaining that it was part of the mix I had made. Music dropped like little signs, little reminders that I am not alone, and that there is Someone, always looking out.

Mitakuye Oyasin, by your grace.

The sun made my car look like a fire-red Valkyrie and when I climbed into it I had a renewed feeling of self-sufficiency, a remembered belief in myself. I have so much to proud of and grateful for, unqualified. In John it says, There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.

Amen. Here's to the remembering, and to the Divine Hand which never fails to remind.

My secret.

The coldness runs down my spine in the quiet moments when my mind conjures up memories of that last night, the walk down the gritty hallway, that cardboard box, and the solitary figure at the exit door, not a look back because what was there to see? I remember the drive in and telling myself over and over again that I was a cowboy, that I would walk the hundred odd yards to my locker with my best swagger, chest out and eyes burning blue. When I got to the door all the bravado drained from me as I fit the key into the lock, and I thanked God that I was an early car and didn't have to face the rest of my shift, not yet. Out on the road in less than five minutes. Driving the streets as if it was my last night on earth and I had to savor every second of it.

And the ghosts were everywhere. Passed a dark parking lot where I broke up my first fight, alone. Passed the gas station where the whole shift showed up to wrestle the drunk combatants inside. The burgled house where I took the lead even though my backup had 15 plus years of experience on me. The crummy apartment complex where I got the felon to own up to her crime, to the disbelief of my partner. The icy street where JD and I practiced "snow driving" which was really just playing. And the parks, cemeteries and remote parking lots where I met up with my true shift, one by one, so many times, where the war stories and real learning took place.

Early that last morning they took me out for breakfast after a flurry of activity and it was me cracking the jokes and reminding their somber faces of the good times. When we were all but done the four of us were called away to respond to an apparent burglary in progress. I was the first one out the door and on the street and I led the caravan of red and blue lights and sirens cutting through the dark and quiet early morning. Perfect. It was as if the entire eight hours had been scripted by some benevolent hand, to remind me of the calling in the trying days and months ahead.

After we cleared I returned, for the last time, and cleaned everything out of my faithful my car. I rounded the corner to my locker room and there was the cardboard box, empty, waiting to be filled, and my lieutenant clumsily standing over it. And with my gun, and Sam Browne, and radio and all the other equipment I had held and trusted and depended upon, I filled the box. And last of all, my badge.

And it almost broke me. Almost, but not quite. The one secret that I have kept, the one trump card that I have held back is the quiet prayer that I have said to myself in the times that I have needed the most help and guidance. The prayer has been with me since I was 18 and when I read the words I intuitively knew they had power. Mitakuye Oyasin... All my relatives. It is a Sioux prayer that I read in a book ten years ago and have carried it since. I said it like a mantra the day I got my letter. I chanted it underwater in the tank at OSP. I said it during police tests, and interviews and before walking up alone to cars I had pulled over on dimly lit streets who had no business to be there. And I said it all night and into the morning that last shift. Mitakuye Oyasin, I need your strength now more than ever. And I imagine both grandfathers just behind me, and all the Irish are there, ruddy-cheeked and devoted, and the Czechs who are always lined up with St. Michael, ready for battle. I say it and conjure up a limitless and unconditional well of support, self-confidence, strength and courage.

And I have found that it has never, ever failed me.

A reminder.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

I sometimes wonder if it's a genetic predisposition to cling to the dreaded guilty feeling that potential energy is going to waste with each checking off of each day. I know that my doppelganger knows exactly what I mean. As if we were allotted some predetermined and finite amount of ability that has to be used up, invested, before a certain date (thirtieth birthday? thirty-fifth? tomorrow?) lest it turn into a pumpkin and be completely unusable forever after. How perfect though that I sit and type this in my new subterranean home, Tom Waits crooning between each line.

The only thing guilt is good for is letting go.

I am in debt only to myself, and the only account in the ledger book is my own happiness, which I try to pay off each time a car passes on the street, or I blink, or take in a long deep breath.

Enough with excoriating yourself with the assumption that the truth hides just under the next sloughing off. You do have to be good to yourself, kiddo.

The heat cometh.

His words created a world in my mind like being inside a camera obscura, watching the comings and goings as if from some dream-like, thinly veiled perspective. Hard not to look down upon my self with benevolence and a detached understanding. I move as if in sleep, at times. It's like when you have the feeling that you know what is going to happen, but you go through the mechanics of the task just to watch it unfold. She says sometimes, Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner. And it makes me wonder if I really know what it is to be attached. As if perhaps there was some cleaving in my past that I can't even conjure up anymore, but that has had its effect none-the-less.

We move like shadows on the edge of the other's world. A fog light faintly obscures the darkness from time to time, but it's mostly fumbling and faith. I walk the path with determined steps, fully knowing that at the end it becomes so narrow that it could only ever accommodate a lone sojourner.

And then I laugh to myself when, peering into that distant future, I see that I am accompanied by my sisters and we are not so vein as to need to walk two abreast. We walk single file, and take turns at the lead.

And for that I am blessed beyond comprehension.

We work for God.

Lately I feel like Lieutenant Dan, I was supposed to have died in the war! I felt like a ghost today, visiting the skeleton of a previous life. There is a tragic lack of warriors in this part of the world.

I am irritated. Annoyed, misunderstood, angry. There is something under my skin that I can't ignore or make go away. A restlessness that has never plagued me before.

They have taken my sword and shield, so I fight with my fists and pray for St. Michael to watch my back.

No poetry today.

Sometimes I wonder if I wasn't born at the very beginning of a slow and determined decline. The start of the end for the second coming of this land's gilded age. Like an avalanche is at first imperceptible, but builds up the strength and might to ultimately level forests, destroy villages.

I have tried to put my finger on the event that happened between my grandfather's generation and now, but mostly it's just been like checking the tree tops for wind direction in a tornado. Sometimes I wonder if it's a lack of tragedy; if our combined experience lacks a trauma with enough reverberation to shake us to our core, to solidify us towards a common goal of becoming better humans. They had the world wars, and the great depression: events which required the nation to pull together if it was to survive. Literally. We had the gulf wars and 9/11: events which catalyzed us for a time, but ultimately were removed enough from our daily existence that we were not forced to pay them any mind if we had other things to do. Trips to Walmart, a corn-hole tournament, plugging into the season's hottest new show.

By choosing comfort over concern, we have destroyed ourselves.

I don't mean to be up on a soapbox. In fact, I feel just about as down and out as a white girl who owns a house and a car can. As I watch the balance of my bank account sink lower and lower. I think that all of this was conjured up because of the meeting on Monday. The city's old chief was there, all 5 feet of him, and even though he was weathered, wrinkled, grey, you could not help but take notice of him and be respectful of his presence. What we do with our lives brands our spirits, it seems to me, and the strength of that branding is perceptible (to varying degrees) to the people we come in contact with. By contrast, the current chief was there and one could have gone all meeting and not noticed. His lithe frame made transparent by his complete and utter lack of zeal, or earnestness.

The old chief shook my hand and asked me how I was doing and an unspoken outrage passed between our glances. The new chief ignored me completely.

This country is hard on people.

I remembered this stupid movie that I watched with my ex, a drop in the bucket of stupid movies that we watched together. Stay Hungry. The Governator was in it, and I remember him giving this surprising and poignant monologue about how it was important to stay hungry in life, because hunger (figuratively and literally) is one of the best motivators there is. Complacency being tantamount to death, atrophy. I would like to work my fingers to the bone, I would like to toil until my clothes are threadbare, my body is sinew and my mind finds the strength that exists beyond exhaustion. I want to wake up hungry and work for my reward. I want to be old, and weathered, and grey, and to walk into a room and just be barely able to fit my spirit inside with me.

Because in all of these trials I keep coming back to the knowledge that there is no normal life. The belief in such a thing is a farce, that the avalanche of decline can only tear down.

Let go lightly

I was never one of those individuals who knew that they wanted to be an officer since they were a child. I remember specifically when I got the calling. I was in Oregon, on the coast, on a long vacation with my then husband, exploring the small towns along the Pacific. We had just made it into Tillamook, stopped for espresso and hiked out to an isolated beach. I took my shoes off and stood barefoot on the cold sand, sipping my coffee while the waves crashed and receded around my feet. The sun was warm on my back and I closed my eyes to soak it all in.

It came all at once and with no warning or explanation. I saw myself in a patrol car, clad entirely in dark blue, blonde hair pulled back tightly, driving my black-and-white up a wide expanse of asphalt. It was a nondescript shopping area in an anonymous city. The sun beat down in my vision and I had a feeling that I could only describe as the satisfaction of a heart finding its home.

A seagull cried out in the clear blue sky high above and I was instantly back on the beach, feet buried in sand and almost numb from the cold of the sea. We continued down the coast and I took that vision and sequestered it away in the place I safeguard all of my secrets. Protecting that young and fragile dream from the doubt and insecurity that was surely to come from the people in my life at the time. Keeping watch over it until it had matured and had the strength and determination to withstand all the nay-saying and fear of change. I had been called, and there was nothing I could do but answer.

Three, maybe four years later I can't help but feel the gratitude swell in my heart when I conjure up that memory. I have come a long way since that afternoon on the beach, and it would be a lie if I said that I didn't lose a lot on the journey. But what I have gained is indescribable and priceless. Someone told me once that God provides us with everything if we just point our hearts in His direction. I would be a fool to think, now especially, that those words had no truth.

I meant it when I told my dad that I derive an untold amount of pride each time that I put my uniform on and see his name, and my grandfather's name, carved in steel and pinned to my chest. There is nothing to hold you back once you realize that you are already victorious. Change comes, it has its purpose, and we don't always have the fortune of understanding why or for what.

I am a ball of potential energy, a heart again looking for its home. Maybe this has all been a reminder that a true warrior walks alone; the lack of leadership, the squandered loyalty, the love that will never be my own. I tell myself, and my mom reaffirms, that this is a test to see if I am ready for what waits ahead, just out of sight. I have cut the patches from my sleeves and set out with a heart full of hope. Blessed be the journey, may we find ourselves along the way.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Happy New Year to all of the amazing people in my life. My family, my friends, my brothers in blue. May we have the hindsight to know where we've been, the foresight to know where we're going, and the insight to know when we've gone too far. May we know only happiness in the coming year.

Sighted

This time of year always forces me to turn inward, as if my mind feels it's somehow right, or appropriate, to mirror nature's decline as the calendar treads undeterred into the winter. The earth absorbs the summer's excess as it does every year. And so does my heart absorb the excess of the past months by closing up shop and barricading the windows. It must have heard of the tempest coming.

He left and I wondered why I invite such chaos into my life. How I can entertain such an hypocrisy. Of late when I head out into the wide world I take a suspicious glance upwards, for fear that I have become one of those upon whom the sky will cave in, by and by. Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. Sometimes I have this image of myself running through an abandoned salt flat, barren of anything, myself completely unencumbered headed into the unknowable future. When I come back down I think of Atlas and what it is to be burdened.

But I was lucky, and I got these words from Grandfather Z and he said, A day you don't laugh is a day wasted, and I carry them around like a sacred trust.

We save the seriousness for the battle, which is most of the time fought internally anyway. This life is more fragile than a feather and one can only but take it half-heartedly. If you squeeze to hard it will break.

I am thankful for you, Emily. So much so that there is absolutely no way I can describe the how or why with words. To try would be to make it cheap.

Offering up my faith.

She tells me that you do not have to be good, and I assure myself that no, I am not. I have broken bones and scar tissue and where they have ossified and healed and grown over is the source of my strength, battle-tested and ready for war. I am twenty-five generations of warrior pumping hot and fast through a resolved heart. Here for the reckoning, like notches on a post.

Ready. Waiting. Selfless. The sheepdog can smell the wolf coming for miles.

They had a staff meeting where our leader told them that none of us were to hang around station, that we were all to be out constantly, being productive, displaying a basic competence at being able to do work. He relays this information to me after I had single-handedly wrung up a theft and criminal tools possession in under 30 minutes, and headed back out onto the street. Not that it was a noteworthy accomplishment, just that I am a hard worker. While I was getting the fingerprints I could hear 1/3 of our shift sitting in the squad room, all with feet propped up on the table, commiserating about how the layoffs will leave them all short-shifted.

The irony of it was not lost on me.

Back out on the street I wracked up two more reports and finished them while remaining in service and responding to several other calls for service. Met up with my brother and we talked at length about what a disaster it is to put power in the hands of fools, and that the quest for efficiency by such people generally results in a culling of the best and brightest. Because like water we are constantly in motion, seeking out our own level.

I am a part of St. Michael's legion. When I look at myself in the mirror the eyes looking back are full of humility at having been able to serve with such noble-hearted people. But the furrowed brow has already slipped into self-preservation mode and has moved on.

Like when I was a kid in church, I spend much of my time looking at my hands, wondering what they will master next.

Feather in my cap.

It was a case that came to me originally because I could not live with it getting thrown away. The others called 10-8 when we couldn't find the suspect vehicle, but just shrugging my shoulders and moving on didn't sit right. I went in, did a little talking and walked out with a felony investigation, surveillance video, license plate, serial numbers and a fire in my belly.

I dug deep into my bag of tricks and came up with an address and a lead. The phone numbers were dead ends so I enlisted the help of another PD and when I came back to work I had eight messages full of anxiety and apprehension. The lion circled her prey and she could not help but taste the ripeness of the hunt on her tongue.

And in the middle of the investigation was the meeting, the letter, the death and a lifetime's worth of heart ache.

They came on station and asked if they were going to be arrested on the spot. I had to hide victory's smile behind a furrowed brow and a feigned detachment. I recited Miranda like a reading from the old testament and went to work. I watched the body language and analyzed the stuttered speech, checking off the cues as if I had a liar's checklist. The statement in written word was more than I had hoped for and as I escorted them out I could not help but nod to the ghost of my grandfather. We few, we happy few. There is nothing in the world like this job.

Made a photo line-up with my other suspect's visage and typed up the story to be kept forever. To be immortalized in the guts of the department's records, even if its author's tenure is on the downward slope of time.

Hit the streets, 10-8, like a fucking cowboy, awestruck by how much of this life is a gift. Every day is your resume, he tells me, and a day like today I can't help but feel like I've done the name proud.

And when I think about it, that's all that I really want. A chance to ply my trade and leave my mark for whatever jurisdiction will have me. I hope and pray and beat my chest that in the future it will be the same supervisors who sign my reports. But I do not pretend to know what God has in store for me -- my hypocrisy goes only so far. All I know is that if this was my last felony case in that uniform, that I did it proud and left constantly climbing without slowing down.

A toast to my forebears. And to the job, my calling. If nothing else I know what I was built for. And that is so much more than so many will ever have.

St. Michael, I am at your feet.

The glory.

In my head the lyrics looped, do you think about me now and then, do you still remember when? I'm coming home again. My phone rang and I couldn't avoid it because we had been parked together for so long that I had no more excuses.

His voice was pitched and stressed out and I wondered if it was possible for him to be feeling worse for me than I was. And I knew that if it was possible, he was. We talked and I joked and tried to make light of it, to ease his worry, and meanwhile fingertip to fingertip we exchanged vows through open windows, words unspoken. I looked over at him once and he was crying. I looked over at him once or twice and he was crying.

Holy Father, hear my prayer.

I looked at him underneath the distorting lamplight and he just looked away, out the fogged up passenger window, and clamped down on that piece of skin that bridges the nose, that links eyebrow to eyebrow. What do you say when you see a mountain crumble? What good are words when nothing makes sense?

Later on a call, because I could not stay busy enough, we looked at each other, contemplating the reality of having to blow away a fucker wanting suicide by cop, and at the same time we had the same thought, the same solution. He just smiled at me as I pulled my gun and we two went forward, in a fucked up waltz, never once stepping on the other's toes. What will you do when I'm gone, and if, I wondered.

I drove around in concentric rings of not wanting to give it up, and every now and then our paths met up, every now and then we hunted in the same circles. When we were still for a moment all that he could tell me was that I was loved, did I know how much I was loved? The boys bolstering for me, even the laziest of them out to write tickets as if one hundred dollars here or there was the answer. The redness around his eyes and the way he looks away.

Later today I will break the news. Later today it will be like the ton of bricks that he talks about laying so heavily on his chest.

But not now. Now just the memory and the gratefulness. No matter what happens I have had so much more than so many others.

St. Michael, hear my prayer.