I sit here quietly wondering. Most of what has happened the past few days has been in conflict with what I hear people tell me and what I
actually see going on. I have been assured by the owner of the dog that she will get her boyfriend to pay part of the vet bill. Yet when I passed her house Tuesday night there were three large men standing out front watching me as I passed on the other side of the street. Arms folded across their chests two fixed their eyes on us (Kiki and I, Sam won't be able to walk for two weeks) one shook his head and went in the house with a look of disgust on his face.
Yesterday a new Animal Control Officer called and said she had been assigned to the case from 'the guy at the top.' I told her perhaps the first officer had himself removed from the case because he can't be objective since his son walks pass the house to and from school. She wanted me to get her the address of the neighbor who said the dog had entered her house and attacked their dog.
She asked 'Do you walk every day?'
I tell her yes, I've been walking this route for almost a year now.
Every night since the attack, Animal Control, Pima County Sherriff and Marana PD have passed me on my walks. Last night my husband called the lady and all seemed amicable. She's still trying to get her boyfrind to pay part of the vet bills and she understood from the Animal Control Officer that the vet would have reported the incident to Animal Control, she understood that we're not trying to cause any trouble. Reassured I walked last night, but took a different route.
I heard the car coming from behind me, it's boombox vibrating the ground with deep resonance. He drove by me slowly, glaring, it was one of the men that live in her house. It was all meant to intimidate. A white car with gold wheels, the tags are from California. I walked off in the opposite direction from my house because I didn't want him to know where we live.
They don't have our phone number either and Number One Son tells me he thinks he plays basketball with them down at the park. I haven't told anyone I don't want any trouble. I have no proof and there's no point in worrying my husband.
They don't know what I've lost these people. I do a lot of thinking on these walks. About how to rebuild my life, help one of my sons with a perplexing problem or plan for family.
Working though problems while the heat scatters into the cooling desert and the chameleon sunsets.
These are the people and things I see and delight in every day...
~ the desert gecko that lives in a clump prickely pear cactus who suns himself in the evening sun and scurries back to safety when we walk by only to be out again when we return home
~the pizza delivery guys,
~the curly black terrier that literally explodes into yapping when we go by, dashing madly around the back of the house to get to the other gate before we go out of sight
~
the sad basset hound pup next door whose bays are mournfully muffled because he's young
~ the family I met at he grocery store who insisted that I look for them (I found them) who drive by in the blue Thunderbird we all exhange friendly waves,
~ the contented cat in the picture window silently twitching his tail
~ a brown and white dappled Saint Bernard who, I swear if he decided to,could lean against the rickety old wooden thing his owners call a fence and knock it over!! Well he always bounds to the fence and gently sticks his nose out between the boards for a friendly nuzzle
~ the sage that blooms delicate purple after every monsoon rain
~the energetic man with the tags that say INVSTR who waves wildy to get a smile from me.
~ the place where the cottontailed rabbits come out in the early evening to graze and scurry off flushing out the quail making my dogs dance excitedly the the end of their leash
I threw away my purse today, I couldn't get the stains out of the fabric. Sam had laid on it in the darkness of the car. The walking shoes I bought myself for my birthay were also permanently stained and I got rid of them as well.
I still have to face tonights walk and I'll go because I don't want to end up losing this step forward in my recovery. Time will pass and hopefully it will become a distant memory, but for now it's painful.
==
"This truth was given me in secret, as though whispered in my ear. It came in a vision at night as others slept.
Fear gripped me; I trembled and shook with terror.
A spirit swept past my face. Its wind sent shivers up my spine. It stopped, but I couldn't see its shape. There was a form before my eyes, and a hushed voice said,
'Can a mortal be just and upright before God? Can a person be pure before the Creator?' "If God cannot trust his own angels and has charged some of them with folly, how much less will he trust those made of clay! Their foundation is dust, and they are crushed as easily as moths. They are alive in the morning, but by evening they are dead, gone forever without a trace. Their tent collapses; they die in ignorance.
Job 4:12-21 (NLT)
Devotion