Three years. Three realtors. Interest ebbs and flows, people show up to see the house but mostly they don't. People serious about it but falling just short of making an offer before walking away. The last listing of the PA house ended last week. We began the re-listing process on Friday with another real estate company. On Saturday, as I finished the last touches on my six year old's birthday cake, I received a call from our neighbor in PA. The key in the realtor lock box was missing and the front door to our house was open. She stepped in and went no further. A white substance covered the hundred year old wood floors and red spray paint graffiti littered the walls and columns on the banister in our living room and dining room (the two rooms visible from the front door). One hundred years ago, a prominent Jewish family built our lovely PA home. The house was blessed regularly by the local rabbi and bits of scripture from the Torah were placed on the door frames in the house; they are called mezuzah. Based on the passage in Deuteronomy 11;13-21 "....You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul... You shall teach your sons, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your sons may be multiplied...", the mezuzah was the daily reminder of His commands and his faithfulness. The graffiti, in stark contrast to the present mezuzah and in some places mere inches away from the mezuzah, was Satanic in nature; upside down crosses, 666 and other variations. I'm struck by this juxtaposition, inherent good and evil.
The police were called. The graffiti damage is extensive and in most of the rooms in the house. The white substance covering the living room is fire extinguisher residue expended from the extinguisher we kept in the kitchen. The police left, our neighbors went to get new locks to replace the ones on the outside doors, and, I believe, the hoodlums returned while they were gone and locked the house. The spare key was with the company still making the radiator repairs (because, yes, even those repairs aren't completed after four months of delays) and couldn't be retrieved until Monday morning. So what can you do? Life doesn't stop for vandalism. We went to the pool for our girl's party and she had the best day. As the pool party broke up, our neighbor called. She could see people in our house from her kitchen window. The police had been called yet again. A local friend called also and said he was parked across the street to watch. The police caught two of the guys, teens from what we know. We don't know of any additional damage. The windows seem intact and hardware is still good; it seems they stuck to graffiti and the fire extinguisher.
There are many phone calls to be made today; police, insurance, realtor, radiator repair company. I don't sleep well when things of this nature happen (and the last six months have seen plenty of sleeplessness) because I always have to work things out in my mind. We have had the lion's share of stresses (I always thought it was a level of crazy dealt to our military family lifestyle but the last six months weren't all about that, you know... just the new job and the move), but ALL this is just a thing, just stuff. And really, it's just one big inconvenience after another, and yeah, it's really added up. I've stopped looking for the straw that breaks the camel's back. One thing I keep hearing somewhere in the depths of my thoughts is a conversation in which Frodo tells Gandalf "I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened." Gandalf replied "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil." I'm certainly not carrying a ring to Mordor to save Middle Earth and as an historian, I would be foolish to assume that these things, however immediately abhorrent, are a permanent affliction. For by comparison to millions of others, these things are merely aggravations, and my response should be fitting to the circumstance, not by what is perceived. Some things have proved to be the proverbial thorn in the flesh, but once the shock of the radiators blowing up, or the move, or this vandalism and all the little inconveniences wears off, what do I have left? I have people. Many tears have been cried from stress and frustration, but so many more tears have streamed from my eyes over kindness, encouragement, and support, a constant reminder that we are His and everything will be fine in the long-run. We have been lifted up, held close and carried so many times in the last few months, that I can say these things are simply inconveniences, however far reaching. We have been blessed.
"But you, O Lord, are a God
merciful and gracious,
Slow to anger and abundant in
kindness and truth."
Psalms 86:15
