All I Ask is That You Come Home Safe

From the very beginning of my husband's career, I've required two things from him:

1) Do your job with the utmost integrity and 2) Come home safe. So far he has accomplished both amazingly well.

I struggled early on with fear for his life. Sometimes my heart just marinated in worry to where it almost felt like I was being choked by it. I would dwell on potential pain to the point of having paranoid ideations. What would I do if I lost him? How would I move forward and be the mother I needed to be? How could I ever do life alone and not destroy our children's lives with my sorrow?

I learned over time to control my thoughts, emotions, and fears. But the truth is, it is always ready to go, bubbling under the surface. Weeks like this only exacerbate these feelings where it seems every direction you turn Officers are being targeted and their lives taken in one fell swoop. I've studied the photos of their families' smiling faces, sharing beautiful, pure joy-filled moments and I see my own family, my own husband, my own life. Those moments are now replaced with the images we can't see. The long, agonizing, miserable and lonely nights with tear-stained pillows, the sad, tear-stained faces. The babies that never get to be held by their fathers or mothers again. The wives and husbands that will never again feel the sweet embrace of their love. It's excruciatingly painful to even envision. It was supposed to be different. We have other plans for our future. In the end, we just don't control if that will ever be us. We can walk alongside those who now live this reality, all while holding our breath, praying, pleading that it's never us.

I will continue to ask my husband to come home safe, and he will try with all his might. At the end of the day, that's all they can do. Dwelling in this fact can be unbearable, but sometimes you just can't help yourself.

Pure hatred for our men and women in blue is running rampant and it is destroying thousands of lives. Will it ever change, or will we always feel like we're waiting for the other shoe to drop? It has to change. Our world has to change. The good have to rise and fight back, it will destroy us all if we don't find a way.

In the meantime, I will just keep repeating, "All I ask is that you come home safe", and have hope that he will. I will cling to the beautiful moments we have and cherish each and every one of them as if they're our last.