In Like a Dog, Out Like a Dog

An amazing day, really, January 1^st 2009……..the best part of that morning was the rotty mix just wanting to be calmed and petted in the backyard.

She was awfully sweet and so grateful for those caresses and “good girl’s” I gave her. It seems like dogs, not unlike us, will take that affection as long as you keep it coming.

And, to be frankly honest, I was pretty relieved she wasn’t attacking me because when we arrived she was pretty disconcerted.

I was, after all, a uniformed stranger in her backyard.

Doggy petting wasn’t really what I wanted to be doing at six in the morning on New Year’s Day but, hey, that was my job. It was different every time…….

That little interlude of doggy love kind of belied the dead guy just past the Jacuzzi face down in his vomit. The air was cold; he was purple and stiff with rigor mortis and I was relieved that I didn’t have to work him.

We started the routine, notified dispatch to respond Sherriff’s Officers so they could paperwork another death and then we could leave it all in our rearview mirror and head back to our station.

Selfish or pragmatic, who knows…… Besides, I was still half asleep and I had just started the coffee at the station and hadn’t even had a cup, damn it…… habits.

A long night of calls and very little sleep meant I wasn’t awake enough to register or even care much about the woman twisting away on the floor of her kitchen, frantically shrieking in horror and denial about her new reality. I was just tired.

Understandably she just could not believe what was happening.

 Well, what had already happened and that was only the beginning for her.

There wasn’t any undoing this one.

I am pretty sure this was not what she expected when she fell asleep on the couch late New Year’s Eve while her old man was out drinking in the backyard.

Another exciting New Year’s……. one that surely won’t ever blend into the others gone by.

Of course, then I fully woke up and found my compassion.

After so many years on the job I’d have to remind myself, on occasion, that these were real people with real, normal people, feelings.

My captain was really having a hard time with this lady. Of course, he had never been married nor had he ever had kids. It had always been difficult for him to connect with distressed women and kids and at times like this he was often at a loss.

So, I went in, held her hands and lifted her up off the floor and gave her a hug….. She really needed one. That’s when she told me her little girl was upstairs.

Boy, did that little announcement completely changed the tone of the call for me.

She asked me to go a couple of doors up the street and tell her neighbors she needed them to come take care of her little girl. Of course I volunteered……frankly I just wanted out of there for a few minutes to regroup.

A minute later I was knocking on this neighbor’s door, hoping he wasn’t going to be armed. A man who looked like he’d been up late bringing in the New Year finally answered his door with a “what the hell are you doing here” look on his face and I said to him, “Look, I’m sorry to disturb you but your neighbor two doors down needs you and your wife to come down and take care of her little girl. Her husband is dead and she is losing it and she needs your help now.”

He was like, “WHAT!???! (Whatever the hell his name was) is dead!!!?????” That was when he started to flip out a little. Immediately I said, “Yeah, hey uh, she and I don’t have time for you to lose it right now. I know this is going to be a bad morning but she, her kid and I need you to get it together and get down there now and handle this. She’s losing it and can’t take care of her kid. Are you gonna be able to pull it together and get over there”?

He was waking up quickly and he gathered his emotions, assuring me he would be there shortly so I split back to the death house.

As I made my way back I could see the mom was in the front yard and the neighbors were starting to pile up.  Everybody comes out for fire trucks and tragedy. She was grieving heavily and my boss and I exchanged a look acknowledging that this was starting to really go sideways.

I asked him if anybody had seen or talked to the little girl upstairs yet.

He said no and I asked him if he wanted me to go do that.

He asked, “Do you mind”?

 “Is that what you want me to do?”

 “Yeah, would you?”

“Sure, no problem”…………like it’s bringing in the paper or something…… but it isn’t……

I’ve got a wife and kids and I love them like I can’t believe and if anything happened to them I’d be that hysterical person in the front yard…. But that New Year’s I was not, thank god.

I knew talking to this little girl was not going to be fun at best and could go really sideways at worst. My heart started to fracture and bleed a bit but I kept all that on the inside.

I headed up the staircase, all the way thinking to myself how much some parts of my job just suck, rounded a corner and walked into a bedroom.  And there, sitting motionless on the bed was a sweet little girl about 7 years old in her pee-soaked jammies.

I sat down next to her and put my arm around her. She started to cry and tears started to work their way down my face….. It’s hard to see a little girl scared like that……….

In a minute, once I knew I could speak to her without my voice breaking, I told her who I was and I asked her if she knew what was going on. She shook her head no so I asked her if she was scared and she just quaked….this tiny, now fatherless, child breathing fast and shallow with fear and tears just pouring out of her…… I kept my arm around this little girl in her pee-soaked jammies while my heart broke for her and I just stared out the window as she cried.

Once I got a handle on myself again I asked her what her name was. She wouldn’t say. I asked how old she was and she was just not talking.

It was too big….

So I thought to ask her about books and school, playing, her friends, things my little girl loved, and she opened up and we talked about nothing at all but we talked.

I was dreading the thought that I was going to have to tell her that her dad was dead. Christ, I didn’t want to but if she asked I wasn’t going to lie. It seemed pretty certain that she already knew on some level but who was I to do that?

As I felt this little child’s fear, confusion and grief and tried somehow to relieve it just a little I thought about going home in a few hours to see my own family and how I would look at them just a little different for a while.

Until you live it you just don’t know…..

Finally her mom came up grief stricken but somewhat composed. I watched her suck it up and  tell this little girl, her daughter, that her daddy is very sick and we have to take him…..that she has to go to the neighbors for a while……

I gave her a hug and we left.