Too Close to Home

On Thursday night, while I was cleaning up the kitchen and getting the house ready for book club - I had Entertainment Tonight on in the background.  I enjoy a good trashy TV show and gossip to wind down after a long day.  Then the news noise came on - to say breaking news - and I was pissed.  They are going to interrupt Mario Lopez to tell me about another water main break in Boston - I thought.  But, sadly that was not the case.

Turns out, very local to me - there was a police standoff and people reported killed.  This is extremely strange, for my area.  Even more strange, that this is interrupting the TV on all channels, in Boston and throughout New England.  This was a big deal.  Minutes later I hear helicopters over head.  This, I presume was news cameras.  But it freaked me out nonetheless.

Book Club continued as normal.  We got off the topic of the "mass killer on the loose" and forgot about it.  When I turned on the TV before going to bed, I found out 1 police officer had died, 10 days before his retirement.  It was a drug related bust and the suspect was still inside the house.  Ok, I can go to bed.  No killer on the loose.  I basically thought that it being a drug raid and all, this was so out of the realm of my circuit that there was no way this could touch me.  Good night.

The next day the Today show had scenes of the house, a beautiful neighborhood, beautiful home.  The killer had killed himself, and his girlfriend, also inside the home. There were photos of the police officer.  Very sad.  All I could think about was who this crazy meth head was that shot this guy.  What was he doing in our area?  We live in a nice area!  Who the hell let this guy live there for so long?  Then again, back to my comfortable bubble world.  This would not ever happen to anyone I knew.

I was wrong.  I found out later through a neighbor, "Did you know the man who shot the police lived in our town?  His mother volunteers for the historical society?"  No, I thought.  Couldn't believe it.  Eh, his Mom probably volunteered once years ago and I never met her.  How could I know someone connected with that?

Then I looked on the news, and there it was.  I know this woman, the mother of the killer.  She and I worked together on historical society things and other town things.  She is my Facebook friend, has been to my house and I to hers.  When her husband passed away years ago we sent cards.  She is a lovely woman. She is hard working, lives in a beautiful historic home, and is very kind and considerate to her neighbors and friends.  How could this happen?

Then more news comes out.  People cannot believe that this man was capable of killing anyone. A big teddy bear.  But somewhere along the line, things went wrong for him and he was involved with steroids (not the meth lab I had first pictured when the news called it a drug bust).  How could this happen?  To someone I know?

Of course you feel sorry for the police officer who lost his life.  I guess we are not supposed to feel sorry for the man who went wrong and lost his?  But I can't help feeling sorry for all.  Things can go wrong for anyone.  And now it pains me to think about a neighbor, a lovely woman, who has to live with what her son will now be infamous for.  How horrible it must be to live with what your son had done.  How horrible it is to remember him when he was good, but then feel guilty since he was responsible for taking someone else's loved one away.  I can't imagine, and I hope I never am there.  But, there is one thing that this has all taught me, this is not out of my reach.  This can happen to anyone, anywhere.  So sad.