Chris Belland's - "Hindsights & Insights"
Sunday, August 22, 2010
The strange consequence of returning from vacation to a burgled house

By CHRIS BELLAND Citizen Columnist

Just like a typical "staycation," we decided to take a long weekend at a local resort hotel. We wanted to be just like tourists and pampered for a couple of days, but do it not too far from home. The hotel was a famous one up the road on Miami Beach and it was everything we hoped it would be. The room was gorgeous and overlooked the ocean. Every opportunity to recreate was on the hotel grounds, and we did it all. We didn't even have to worry about cooking or cleaning up, which of course was the whole idea. It was a glorious weekend. We left sunburned and as lazy as fat cats after a bowl of milk.

We returned home to the frantic welcome of our dog, as was typical for him. He did seem a little unnerved, which was not typical. Upon entering the house, we could see why. The back door was wide-open and the jam had been ripped off. There were things scattered and eerily out of place. It was clear that someone had broken in.

Of course, we immediately called the police, because there was no way to tell if the "perp" might still be in the house. It was scary. The police arrived quickly, and after they made a sweep of the house with guns drawn (scarier), it was evident no one was there and the burglary had probably taken place some time ago. Then came the part of surveying what might have been taken. We were cautioned by the police not to touch anything, which of course we didn't. I'm not sure why, but they had people in there dusting for fingerprints, which I had never seen before in person and was quite interested in the process. They found prints but nothing ever came of it.

The thieves took a few pieces of jewelry that weren't of much consequence except for the fact that some of them had belonged to mothers and grandmothers. A few tears were shed over this and I became angry over the senselessness of it all. There were a few guns in the house and they got those, too. They weren't Uzis or Glocks or anything, but rather antique collector items that really weren't very valuable. They also got the safe. This was about a 300-pound small safe that was actually carried out. It was hilarious to think later of the sweating, grunting effort of getting the safe out, taking it back to someplace where the proper tools were and burning it open, resulting in finding ... nothing! Oh, there were a few papers in there and a small coin collection of Indian Head pennies, but it wasn't much. In total, the whole thing was pretty silly in terms of what they got. We were pretty sure, in fact, who did it, but nothing came of that, either.

The experience of having your house broken into evokes a series of escalating emotions. When we first walked into the house and realized what had happened, we were frightened of a confrontation with the thieves -- fear of the unknown. After the arrival of the police, we became anxious for what we may have lost -- uncertainty of loss. When we understood what was taken was, after all, just stuff, and of marginal value at that, except for the personal items, we got angry -- feeling violated. The best part came with the awareness that we were OK. We didn't lose much of anything and the burglars got their comeuppance when, after risking so much, they opened that stupid safe and found the penny collection -- relief from humor?

It occurred to me much later that the burglars who broke into the house probably didn't even earn enough per hour for the crime to substitute pay for a real job. They got some of our stuff, but they didn't get our dignity or our integrity. At the same time, they lost all of theirs. The truly valuable thing that may have been in the house wasn't even there. We were at a resort hotel somewhere else. After losing a few material things, we still had our health, our self-respect, integrity and love for each other.

It was 1958 and I was 10 years old, but I've never forgotten the lessons learned that day.

Chris Belland's Hindsights & Insights column appears here on Sundays. Belland also writes a biweekly column on environmental issues, which runs in our Sunday magazine, Solares Hill. All of his previous columns are available on his blog: hindsightsandinsights.blogspot.com. Contact Chris at cbelland@keysnews.com.