Christmas Day: Do Over.

Our Christmas day is over, and the picture above pretty much depicts how I feel this evening.

My Mother was robbed.

HUGELY robbed, something monumental and irreplaceable. Something my father built, and I'm feeling so vulnerable right now that I don't want to say more.

Our Christmas lunch was postponed today for police reports and fingerprint dusting, followed by repairs to broken doors and much agonizing over which further precautions we need to take to prevent this from happening again, and to protect my mother and her belongings.

We are sick.

This robbery was calculated and, the police officer told us, "definitely executed by someone that knows you." We are all the more hurt, and rattled.. Friends? Family? Neighbors?

Was it someone that knew my Dad?

Is it something we said to someone that asked us about our mother? How's your mom? Did she ever sell ________?

Was it someone that knows our schedules? Hell, I've put it out here in blogworld that I take her out every Sunday. Why don't I just announce to the world that we won't be home?!!

Should we buy a safe? Rent some storage? Move mom out of this house that she lived in with my father since 1963?

It's clear that the burglars knew what they were after. They got right to it, tossed the rest of the place to get what they wanted. Something large and unique, and lifted out by more than one man.

I will be late to work, in the morning, as I've been instructed to hit up "those in the know" to put the word out. I'll be going door-to-door and making phone calls: "It's gone. You know it. You see it at a show, on the street, for sale, or on e-bay; please call me or the police."

In the meantime, we do what we do: count our blessings. Our mother was not personally involved, or hurt. We are together this day, as a family. My son--their cousin, nephew, and grandson--is home for the holiday. We have a housefull of food and a bounty of gifts to open.

Still.

I feel like shit.