When I left you yesterday JD and I were feeling the mixed physical results of moving and being old. Notice that I said 'being' old and not 'getting' old. At this point in time I was certain we had 'Arrived'.
We were like a three ring circus. While JD removed the carpeting from the house in town and laid the laminate flooring, I was climbing up and down ladders painting. At the same time we were both unpacking and sorting through what little bit we brought to the house and not placed in the storage unit. As we were getting down to the wire when we would meet with the Realtors at the Title company's office to sign papers and turn over the keys, that final trip to JD's Mountain had to be made and the job there finished.
As we pulled into the drive we noticed that the door to the well house was standing open. Although not something that we did on a regular basis, occasionally we had gone off without locking up one of the out buildings before. While JD stopped to check things out in that building, I went on to the house to get started with the task at hand.
When I unlocked the door and went in I sensed that something just wasn't quite right. I went through the living room, kitchen, dining room and into the spare bedroom and that is when it hit me. The boxes that I had packed and left in that room to be loaded up and moved looked as if they had exploded. After seeing this I walked back through the house and found the same situation in the kitchen and living room where we had left the rest of the packed boxes. The items that I had carefully placed in the boxes had been rifled through and thrown everywhere. Someone had broken into the house in the few days that we had been gone. They had come in through the mudroom door and then through the laundry room, just off the spare bedroom.
It made me physically sick to my stomach that this had happened. With our belongings packed up and in three different locations, it was next to impossible to pinpoint at that time what had been taken. I am still discovering that some things are missing. All we can do is assume that these things were among the items stolen. I am so thankful that we had already moved our belongings with any monetary value on the first move days before the break in. Chris had done a walk through before we left that day and made sure that no valuables were left behind (I raised a very smart son).
It was an ideal house to break into. It couldn't be seen from the road or by the neighbors when the trees had leaves. In fact during the winter months was the only time the house was visible to the outside world. Memories came flooding back of how many nights we slept with the doors wide open and only the screen doors latched. I thought of the times that I had stayed there alone when JD had to make a trip to Louisiana and I wasn't able to go along for one reason or another. Up until this time I had been carrying around a heavy heart about leaving our little piece of heaven, but now found myself looking forward to living where my doors and windows will be visible to my neighbors. Living close enough to people that if I screamed in the night someone will hear me. I don't know that anyone would act on it, but at least I would be heard. I hope to never again experience the flood of emotions that I felt that day when I discovered we had joined the growing ranks of people who are being violated by home invasions. I am thankful that we weren't there when it happened and that the only damage done was to the doors they entered through. It could have been much worse than it was.
We are Blessed..........
~Jo
