Truthful Tuesday - The Thin Blue Line

I am still struggling to understand how I feel right now.

Of course, my heart aches for the wife and children of the officer that died yesterday.  I can't begin to even pretend to understand what they must be going through.  I can only try to imagine the heartache I would feel if it were me.

I am angry at the shooter and the senseless killing of an outstanding officer, father, and husband.

I am grateful that my law enforcement officer is safe today and came home to me this morning, and I am ashamed of my selfishness for that. 

I am sad for all the officers in the community that lost a friend, fellow officer, and mentor. 

I am thankful for the sacrifice that my husband and all the police officers in the community make each and every time that they go on duty to protect us and keep us safe.

Deputy D has been in law enforcement since we got married.  We have talked about the dangers the job entails, but I have always been overly confident that he will come home to me and nothing will ever happen to him.  After all, in my eyes, he is Superman and therefore indestructible.

A wife of a fellow officer said yesterday that she chooses to live in blissful ignorance of all the "what if's" and that about sums it up.   If we focus on and think about all the "what'ifs", how we would ever even let them walk out the door?

The cold, harsh reality is that anything could happen to them at any given moment that they are on duty, just like it did on an idle Monday afternoon in College Station yesterday.  Before he left last night, I held Deputy D closer and longer than I have in a long while.  He came home to me this morning, while there is a widow out there who is grieving and went to bed alone.  I am blessed beyond words that my police officer is safe and here with us now.

I sincerely hope that Officer Bachmann's sacrifice was not in vain.  It certainly has not gone unnoticed, and there is an entire community grieving right along with family and friends.  Aggies tend to love and support their own, not matter what and I know that a maroon wall of support surrounding his wife and children.

In her post, the fellow officer's wife continues to talk about how our guys are not always there to put our children to bed, and often are not home when we wake up in the morning.  They miss church services, school events, and birthday parties.  Our guys are up roaming the streets at night keeping us safe, while we are are home in bed sleeping peacefully.

I get angry and hurt about that sometimes, and it is difficult to deal with.  I don't even know how my real-life Army wife cousin KiKi has done it all these years.  I think it takes special people to be law enforcement, firefighters, and soldiers.  And I think it takes special people to be their families and support.  Yesterday has me seriously questioning whether I made of the stuff it takes to be one of those people.

Am I really willing to let Deputy D sacrifice our life together to possibly lose it all in a senseless killing?

I don't have any answers, and I have struggled to even get words out to begin to make sense of it all.  I hope you bear with me if any of this is offensive or is rambling.  This is the first time anything like this has even remotely hit close to home for us.

My Facebook feed has gone back to it's regular lineup of food, politics, and general comments about everyday life.  How quickly most have moved on.  But I have not, and it will take a while for me to sort through all of this.

Please continue to pray for Constable Bachmann's family, and the families of all the victims. They will need all the love, prayer, and support that they can get to make it through this time.

Rest in peace, Constable Bachmann.  I only met you in person a couple of times, but you made a difference in a lot of lives and I heard about that so many times.

Please take a moment today to stop and think about all of the police, firefighters, and soldiers that sacrifice every day to keep us safe.  And may we never forget those that have made the ultimate sacrifice.