National Police Week

Last week was National Police Week. If you are like me, I had never even heard or paid attention to this week before M1 went into law enforcement. The city M1 works for hosted a memorial service at a local park and invited the public to come. It was M1's day off, but we got the kids dressed and piled them into the van.  We listened to the speakers, saw the flag fly at half mast, and heard the 3 gun salute. As I looked around I noticed that our girls were the only children there. A handful of people from the public came. In 2011 there were 162 law enforcement officers who lost their lives in the line of duty.  As we headed back to the van M1, in full dress uniform, was walking next to his 4 yr old, D6, her pig tails bobbing and her little hand engulfed in his large one......

Lights and sirens behind...you curse and get angry...what a jerk to mess up your day like this. Isn't he just trying to get his quota of tickets for the day?  But what has he really been doing? He has been responding to calls for help - a vicious husband choking his wife in front of their toddler in a highchair, searching for a vehicle that people saw a man shoving a woman into against her will, rushing a 19 yr old girl to the hospital who was found unconscious by a pool and is suffering from alcohol poisoning, calling her mother who is far away and telling her what has happened to her daughter, scouring the trails of a park in the dark looking for a missing person, reassuring and advising four scared college girls after their apartment has been robbed, arresting a person high on drugs who caused a vehicle accident and having that person scream profanities at him until they are handed off at the jail, trying to make peace between a confrontational dad and his out-of-control teenage son, comforting a wife whose husband just put a bag over his head and ended his life. In between all this drama he tries to keep people on the road safe. So, next time you get stopped think about what that officer may have been facing in the line of duty that day and maybe you can thank him for what he does......because probably somewhere in one of those 162 households a little pig tailed girl doesn't have her daddy's hand to hold anymore.