In talking over the tragic event with a friend, I reflected back on my own marriage to a police officer. When we were dating, I used to make him call me at the end of each shift so that I knew he was okay. After a few months of these 4:00 am wakeup calls, I was exhausted...and hardly consoled with regard to his safety. Finally, I consulted his mom: how did she handle the stress of both her husband (a commander) and her son (an officer) being cops?
"It's in God's hands," she told me.
Although I have never been a religious person, for some reason her words made sense. Worrying wasn't going to keep him any safer. I tucked her advice into my heart and tried to keep calm and carry on. After all, what option did I truly have?
Every day that my husband would put on his bulletproof vest with the extra layers of Kevlar over his physiological heart (called, horrifyingly enough, a "trauma plate"), I would layer another piece of my own Kevlar over my emotional heart. I isolated my fears to keep them from invading the rest of me.
As it turns out, bulletproof vests aren't really bulletproof--they're only bullet-resistant to some forms of ammunition. Some of them won't even repel a knife stick.
And like the myth of the "bulletproof" vest, my emotional Kevlar wasn't fail-proof. Sometimes, the bad news found its way through the woven fibers and straight into my core. I've been to two line-of-duty death police funerals--one of them just days after we returned home from our honeymoon--and I assure you, they are not for the faint of heart. It's soul-numbing to see a grown man in full police uniform with tears running down his cheeks while he stands at attention to honor his friend. On those occasions, you wrap your arms around your husband a little tighter, you cry, and you try to convince yourself that it won't ever be you.
Emotional Kevlar, as a concept, isn't unique to cop spouses/partners. All of us have walls that we've built up to protect our hearts from one reality or another. The trauma plates that protect our emotional centers are the result of fear, whether real or perceived. Sometimes they're based on our own bad experiences--times when we were the target of metaphorical gunshots--and sometimes they're the result of someone else's tragedy that we've internalized.
The question becomes: Is the Kevlar necessary, or should it be retired? And if it is necessary, is it thick enough to prevent tragedy?
My thoughts and prayers go out tonight to Officer Decker's family and loved ones, friends, and fellow officers. I will say another prayer tonight for all of my friends in law enforcement who put their lives on the line every day so that the rest of us may sleep in peace. There will be a third prayer for the family members who support our police officers--those families that give up birthday parties and anniversaries and sometimes even their loved ones so that you and I are safe.
This photo was taken on the chilly November day in 2007 when the Minneapolis Park Police buried Officer Mark Bedard, who was killed in the line of duty while pursuing a drive-by shooter. Officer Bedard touched many lives and his gift to all of us is not forgotten.
It's of my then-husband and I, reunited at the end of a long and terrible day--a day when he was the one standing tall, saluting the casket of a friend, with tears falling on his cheeks.
source: Star Tribune
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