on burglary and random thoughts

Kenzi_c
Kenzi_c
Aug 23, 2017 · 3 min read

burglary is defined as the act of illegally entering a building with the intent of committing a crime, particularly theft. And by all means I have recently been the victim of one.

in the nearly 40 years my family has lived in our home, we have never experienced any such thing. Well, my parents haven’t, I am pretty sure some of the places I have lived in have received the unsolicited visit of burglars, but, as everything dear and precious I own has always been kept at my parents’, those visits have always resulted in a big fat nothing.

NOT THIS TIME.

When I was little we never use to lock the front the door most of the time; I never had my own set of keys as there was never the need for it, someone was always at home when I came back from school or sport practice or wherever…

Well, fast forward 20 years and my grandparents have both passed, everybody has moved on and moved out and doors have started to be locked. Keys have been copied and distributed — though not to me, cause I live abroad.

What a shock to come home at 11 am in the morning after a short trip to the grocery store and find the safest place on Earth ( it literally felt this way) burglarised, vandalised, defaced, all our family belongings ( those deemed unworthy of reselling ) scattered everywhere, drawers out on the floors, their content stepped on, mud everywhere, dirty handprints on the pictures frames and on the walls, all pictures thrown down on the floor, in what I can only think was a frantic search for the safe ( which my parents do not have).

We all felt violated and in shock, and guilty for not having been there to protect our home, our refuge, our safe heaven.

I guess it could have been worst, the perps could have come at night and beat the crap out of us on top of stealing our stuff.

So all in all we were lucky, or at least physically unharmed.

I am angry at myself that someone came into in my safe heaven and I was not there to protect it, to protect what it stands for. We were all pretty shaken, we called the police, they came after 2 hours. It was crystal clear they had no intentions of going after the perpetrators, and that no effort would be put in looking for them; they filed our report, job done.

So sad.

We will never find our mementos, the gifts my sister and I received for our Baptism or First Communion, or the presents my parents gifted one another when they were courting.

And whatever these perps will do with the stuff they took from us, it will mean nothing to them, they will not feel the pain we feel. I am sure they also must feel some kind of pain, the pain that makes them think it is ok to steal other people belongings, to enter someone’s home and destroy it and stepped on babies pictures and pictures of our loved one who passed, and just take what is not theirs. And now we all feel pain. Their pain will not be ended by the reselling of our belongings, and we will never be able to replace our mementos, and if we ever buy anything to replace what was so violently taken from us, the new stuff will carry the scars of this experience, and we will never ever feel as we did before.

This was an experience I could have definitely have done without.

I now worry for my parents, alone in an isolated home, which is now known to the seedy underbelly of our apparent quiet town. I did worry before this incident, but in a remote, worst case scenario type of way. Now I know there is a real chance of them being targeted by criminals. I don’t know how to cope with these thoughts. Or how to make sure my parents are safe. They claim they feel safe, they are not scared.

I am, scared, and worried, for them. And I guess I will just have to learn how to live with this anxiety and get on with my life.

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Kenzi_c

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