Tag: heroes

Heroes and Bad Guys

On By Doser3In Dreaming of Mommyhood - GeneralLeave a comment

At what age do you have this conversation?   No, I’m not talking about the birds and the bees, but the ones where you talk about bad guys.   How do you explain it to a precocious four year old so that he understands, that he empathizes, but that he’s not terrified of every person who is lurking around the corner?  How much is too much to tell?

Davey has always understood the level of respect that goes with a uniform.   When he was two, he saluted and shook the hands of two Army privates as we all waited to board a flight in Baltimore.   He thanked them for their service and was excited to have met two heroes.   My cousin and her husband are both retired Navy Corpsmen.   When Davey met them he was just as excited to know that he has family who are heroes, like Captain America.   He sees heroes on t.v. and we read about them in books, but in those stories, the heroes don’t die.   They may get hurt, but they always come home.  How do you rationalize the difference between the make believe heroes and the real ones who are literally sacrificing their lives to protect ours?   It’s hard, but you find a way.

God's power
It rained hard most of the afternoon and we worried if the rain would hold off so we would light our luminaries. God shined down upon us.

Friday afternoon, we lost one of our finest in Greenville, SC.   A police officer was looking to ask questions of a 17 year old self admitted gang member.   When he and his partner found the gang member, he ran from them.   Both officers took off on foot to pursue the young man.   Without speculation as to what happened or how it happened, Officer Allen Jacobs lost his life when he was shot multiple times by the juvenile.   He was gunned down without ever unholstering his gun.

Luminaries 1
Setting up the luminaries.

We didn’t discuss Friday’s events with Davey.  He caught the occasional tidbit of news here and there, but for the most part stayed oblivious until today.   Today, our neighborhood decided to find a way to join together in solidarity, love, and support.  What we came to learn is that the parents of the officer who lost his life, live in our neighborhood.   While we don’t know them personally, this put more of a reality and close to home factor in it for us.   When you know the family of someone who is senselessly killed, it hurts more, you don’t just sympathize, but you feel as if you can almost have a sense of empathy with the family.  So, tonight at sunset, the neighborhood place luminaries along sidewalks, driveways and walkways.

Luminaries 3
Setting up the luminaries.

We decided that with the impending luminaries of love, we should perhaps discuss what happened with Davey.   We told him about a police officer who died, how his mom and dad are our neighbors, and how he was a hero.   Davey’s questions mostly loomed around these…”Did a bad guy get him?”  Yes, a bad guy got him.  “Does my daddy need to go get the bad guy?”  No, the bad guy killed himself.  “You mean he took the gun and pointed it at himself?”  And Davey said this with a little bit of concern, his lower lip trembling slightly.   At this point, I wondered if perhaps I had gone too far, but decided to plow through.  Yes, Davey, he pointed the gun at himself.  “At least the bad guy is gone now,” was the response he had.

Luminaries 2
Setting up the luminaries.

Later, at the start of sunset, we made a family affair of lining our walkway with paper bags, full of rocks, and votive candles.   Both boys helped, but whenever a police officer would drive by, they both stopped and stood in the front yard to wave.

Luminaries 4
Setting up the luminaries.

It’s a horribly senseless tragedy.   My heart breaks every day.  I’ve found myself shedding tears daily as I’ve tried to put myself into the shoes of his widow, who is pregnant with their third child.   I feel inundated with waves of nausea as I “see” her lying down at night, after she’s tucked her two boys into bed, kissing their foreheads and reminding them of how much they were their daddy’s world.   I feel my heart breaking when she lies in the dark  caressing her daughter, still in the womb, as she tries to find ways to stay strong and tell her unborn daughter of how wonderful of a man her daddy was.   Tears stream down my face when I “see” her waking the next morning, from a fitful night of sleep, as she prays that she was just in the midst of a terrible dream and that the love of her life, her best friend, and soul mate, is really just coming home from work.   He did indeed come home, just not to his temporary one here.   Officer Jacobs went home to his Father, and while we all know he is in a better place and this was God’s will, we still hurt for those who lost him and for those of us who didn’t know him other than as a police officer and army veteran.

Luminaries 5
Setting up the luminaries.

Heroes don’t always win and heroes don’t always live, but God’s will be done.

 

Rest in peace, Officer Jacobs.   Your brothers and sister will

Officer Jacobs
Officer Allen Jacobs EOW 3/18/16

take over from here.

Spreading Our Wings

On By Doser3In Dreaming of Mommyhood - GeneralLeave a comment

And we’re off! This marks Davey’s 8th trip to Rochester. He’s been on a total of 30 plane rides in his 3 years on this earth. I think I hit 30 plane rides when I was 30 years old. This is Henry’s 2nd trip to Rochester, with a total of 10 plane rides and he’ll be a year old a week from today! Where has the time flown?

When we first began flying with Davey, I had much trepidation. I worried that he wouldn’t be able to handle it. I worried that I would be surrounded by travellers much like myself pre-baby. I was all prepared for the evil stares when we boarded the plane. We didn’t have any of that and we didn’t have a fussy baby either. Davey was a pro and has been ever since that first flight.

Henry did well his first time around, but I worried this time since he’s sick and just because he’s a lot more active and not exactly eager to sit still. Thankfully, the plane rides were not packed and we had empty seats in front of us. Davey chose his seat alongside the window and spent the better part of the flight staring out it. Henry? Well, he fought sleep and coughed and sneezed all over everyone. I’m sure people were panicking that my child would give them some sort of dreaded flu. But as we flew, I found myself reflecting on life before babies and what flying was like.

Ready for the first flight.
Ready for the first flight.

I’m envious of those people who get the luxury of putting earbuds into the ears and listening to music. I loathe those who get to sit back and read a book on their flights, and I absolutely abhor the ones who are able to recline back and sleep. It’s an Olympic sport just trying to maintain two children while flying. Once Davey was bored with looking out the window, he moved on to pretending that every barf bag was a bad guy and began to punch them profusely. When the seatbelt light when off, he thought it would be wonderful to try to crawl under every seat like it was a tunnel.

Really the flight is a piece of cake compared to the layover especially when you have a 3 HOUR layover and it’s from 6:30-9:30 in the evening. That’s prime playtime and bedtime for the boys. They’ve been cooped up on a plane for over an hour and then we’re going to continue to quarantine them when the moving sidewalks and escalators are beckoning them? What could we possibly be thinking and how horrible we are as parents to even consider keeping them constrained.

Fortunately for us, I brought Henry’s pajamas so he was able to get comfortable and snooze. Davey was able to watch Despicable Me on the iPad and basically all was well with the world. And with every flight, you’re unsure as to who or what you’ll encounter. Last night before boarding the last leg of our journey, Davey was able to meet two extremely selfless and brave young men. Our flight was fortunate to have two Marines on board, one of which had just graduated from Parris Island, SC.

Daddy's make the best pillows especially in an airport.
Daddy’s make the best pillows especially in an airport.

My only regret was that I did not get a picture of Davey as he walked over to both Marines, shook their hands, fist bumped them and then thanked them for their service. Of course I explained to my son who these young men were and what they did.

“Mommy, they’re heroes?” he asked me.

“Yes, Davey. They are heroes.”

“They beat the bad guys really bad,” Davey said with inflection on the words “bad”.

“Yes, buddy, they do.”

“I like them, Mommy. They are my best friends.”

Once we boarded the flight, all it took was a matter of minutes with the cabin lights dimmed, and both boys were fast asleep. Too bad the hubs and I couldn’t sleep or read a book or relax like all of our other flight mates. So goes the joy of flying with kids.