This Is How to Dance With Loss
A love letter for the broken
The dispatcher’s voice startled me. It was 3 AM and I was parked in a lonely, empty lot in the north end of town. I liked parking there because it was quiet, and I could get my reports done.
“Code 7 at Oak Tree Villa,” the dispatcher continued over the radio. In other police agencies, Code-7 meant “lunch break.” Unfortunately, in my department’s radio vernacular, it meant “dead body.”
Oak Tree Villa was our town’s only retirement and assisted living community. A local firefighter once called it “Croak Tree Villa,” which was awful but not inaccurate. Cops and firefighters often refer to retirement/assisted living communities as “God’s waiting room.”
“After you find out all the things that can go wrong, your life becomes less about living and more about waiting.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
I drove the short five miles across town and arrived at Oak Tree Villa. It was summer, and the crickets were in full song as I navigated the pathway to the front entrance.
So many roads to chose
Fire personnel were already there, as their station house was nearby. Inside the lobby, I was greeted by…
