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From time to time life gives us cause to
re-examine our priorities, to weigh what matters and what simply seems to. I’ve
had a year like that. As I write, I’m having a weekend like that.
My deadline is Friday though by the good graces
of my editor I occasionally get a pass until Monday. It has happened too often
lately, and always for the same reason: priorities. Not that this column
should be the cornerstone of my existence for which nothing else can move, but
if I ask for a reprieve it’s generally not just my editor I’ve disappointed.
The deadline is just collateral damage, an innocent bystander caught in the
crossfire of competing demands.
I had a number of topics in mind
for this week. The approval of regulations by the British House of Lords that
would permit cloning of human embryos caught my eye and rankled my mood, as has
Bill Clinton’s endless “Look At Me!” farewell tour. On another day I might have
written of both, one for now and one for later.
They can wait. It can all wait.
I was out of town most of last
week at a work related meeting in Reno, holed up in one of the huge
hotel-casinos that are the city’s lifeblood, a place where people wander for
days without seeing daylight. I arrived Tuesday and didn’t leave the building
until Friday, a stay to melt a pit boss’ heart – unless he happened to notice
that I don’t gamble.
My wife joined me, minimal as my
companionship value was. On Friday I returned to the office while she popped
home long enough to grab our daughter and niece for a planned trip to Visalia.
I wanted to go, I should have gone, but I stayed. I had work to plow through,
chores piling up at home, a column to write.
I had priorities.
While asleep in their hotel, my wife, daughter,
and niece were burglarized. Praise God they were unharmed; they didn’t know it
had happened until they awoke the next morning to find the door ajar. Then my
wife noticed her purse, or more accurately, didn’t.
The last thing she did before going to bed was
remove her contact lenses and put them in their container in her purse, so is
certain she had it. The lock to the room and at least one of the exterior doors
turned out to be defective; the police told her a similar incident had happened
at the same hotel the previous month. That victim had also been raped.
That’s enough to give anyone the willies. I
was about as willied as you can get but my wife had more practical concerns.
Hours away from home, she was broke, missing her credit cards, lacking car keys,
had no contact lenses and two teenagers to feed. Priorities now firmly in
order, my instinct was to drive straight south.
As adrenaline ebbed and reason
flowed, we came up with a better plan. My niece had an ATM card so could get
cash. I recalled losing my rental car keys on vacation a couple of years ago,
then finding a locksmith who could make a duplicate on the spot; my wife was
able to do the same in less time than it would have taken me to drive. I went
anyway.
In October 1997 I wrote of the
burglary of our home while we were at work and school. “I still wake at the
smallest noise,” I said then, “and yes, I still feel violated. But we continue
to feel more thankful than anything else. It’s fortunate that many of one’s
most irreplaceable possessions have little street value. No one ever breaks in
to steal your photo albums (or, as we discovered, your kids’ old baby teeth).
Insurance will replace our tangible loss, but you can’t get coverage for peace
of mind. Perhaps that was only an illusion to begin with, but it’s what we most
want back.”
Which I thought we had. This
time, at least, I have my priorities restored.
© 1997- 2002 Brent Morrison
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