Robbery!

I just realized that it has been just over a year since my house was broken into.  It happened during the most stressful time of my year...it was when Gold Rush planning was in full speed.  It was the first time I had ever undertaken something as enormous as Gold Rush.  Football Homecoming (including town parade, etc) was nothing compared to that.   I was really stressed, and on top of that stress I was scared because someone had invaded my private space.  I couldn't sleep at night.  Every noise made me jump.  My safe place was no longer safe.  And if anything happened....it was just me there.  Me and the cats...  They didn't really take anything.  Just my DVD player (that my brother had gotten me as a graduation present for my masters) and some jewelry.  The most awful thing is that they took a ring of my grandmothers (the one who died a few years ago).  She had given it to me when I had graduated with one of my bachelors degrees.  She had given me her wedding ring, and another gold ring with several diamonds.  They didn't see the wedding ring...i still have that.  But....well....you probably know by now that I am pretty sentimental.  Any "thing" which has memories attached, or history connected to it....i am a sucker for it.  somehow the object gives me back some of the past.  Connects me to the past....this ring connected me to my grandmother, and now i feel these hoodlum kids who had no idea what they were doing (they stole mostly very cheap jewelry which just looked silver, or whatever)...ripped a part of my grandma away from me.  Something I had to hold on to who she was, and who I was.  It is like her house for me.  She knew I was like this...she treated me differently than the other grandkids because I was like this.  She always gave the other kids gift cards and money, but she gave me silverware, and pretty cases to keep it in.  She gave me a locket when I was 16 that she got when SHE was 16, and inside it was a picture of my grandfather....the grandfather I never knew.  How I treasured that locket, and the picture of the man that I knew would have loved and adored me if he had gotten the chance.

  These kids may have taken my feelings of security, and the ring which meant so much to me,  but they can't take away the memory of the ring, or the bond created between me and my grandmother when she wanted to share it with me.  Every time she did this she opened the door.  She let me know her just a little bit more. She gave me the best gift of all....she gave me the key to the past.  My history.  My heritage.