The Blue Ribbons

Driving home from work today I had to drive through Freemansburg....and all I saw up and down the road was blue ribbons....and all I did was cry.

This past week a neighboring town's police officer, while responding to a call, was shot in the head. He leaves behind a wife and 2 small children. Two children who will sadly have very little memories of their father. Who will only know him through pictures and stories. A wife who will sleep in a bed that is too big now that one person is missing.

This man and his family have been weighing heavily on my mind these past few days. Maybe it was becuase he was my age, maybe because it happened in a small boro that one would never think something like this would have happened. The night it happened all I could think was...this is any other night for so many, but for 1 family it was the end..the end of a life, the end of a husband coming home from work for dinner, the end of a father playing with his kids on the floor.... the end.

The only comfort I have is I imagine it happend so quickly that he felt no pain. But that is very little comfort as I think about his family. Usually on Friday nights we go out to dinner...this week we forgot about dinner this Friday and this morning my husband took the kids to the bank that has set up Officer Lasso's memorial fund and donated the money we would have spent on dinner. Money is little comfort to his family who I'm sure would much rather have their husband, son, father back at home tonight. But in my mind it was better than crying for him, as crying will bring his family little solice.