Saturday March 05, 2005

We were Robbed!

Thursday night Duke went to the High School Open House and I decided to work late. When I got home the back door was wide open. I thought that was odd but I was hungry so I closed the door, fixed myself some dinner, and turned on the TV. When Duke got home about 8:30 I asked him if he had left the door open. He said no, so we assumed it was one of the kids. He went upstairs and then I heard him shout “We've been robbed!”

The upstairs had been ransacked. Every door and cupboard was open and stuff was all over the floor. There have been other robberies in our neighborhood and this guy only takes cash and jewelry. He took all our jewelry, including the kids stuff. He took some cash out of Duke's desk and he took a laptop computer. Luckily I am not much of a jewelry person so the $$ value of what was taken isn't too bad but the sentimental value is another story. I had never really thought about how jewelry tells the story of ones life.

There was the gold locket my grandmother gave me when I was born. I kept pictures of my daughters in it. Every time I looked at it I thought of the grandmother for whom I was named.

There was my Clayfield College badge. We lived in Brisbane, Australia for 5 years when I was growing up. It is the badge I work on my uniform from 6th grade on. It reminded me of a very happy time.

There was my Delta Zeta sorority pin. It reminds me of all the wonderful women I lived with in college at Iowa State.

There was Duke's paper boy of the year award. To understand its significance you have to know that we met on Match.com. He was on the three day free trial and I was hesitant to give him my real email address. One of the things that he used to convince me was that he had been a paper boy in Iowa when he was growing up.

There were beautiful earrings and a crystal broach given to me by a wonderful group of people I managed at Sun. They gave the earrings to me when I moved on to my new job. Later they gave the broach to me as a wedding present. Every time I wore them I thought of those friends.

There was the gold watch I got as a gift to commemorate working at Sun for fifteen years. It needed new batteries or I would have been wearing it.

There was the little antique silver golf club pin that I bought at an antique store in Woodstock, England on a business trip at Christmas time many years ago. I still remember how beautiful the village was and how much I enjoyed talking to the shop owner about his father who had been a silver smith and created the pin.

We are lucky that it wasn't a lot worse. What if the guy had still been here when I got home. Or he could have taken all our cameras and electronics. I can put it in perspective but still it makes me sad to lose the mementos of my life.