Sunday, February 12, 2012

The Battering Ram


The Battering Ram

Who has actually ever seen a battering ram? I hadn’t.

One day, the feds showed up at our door, with a battering ram: lettered vests, guns - lots of very scary stuff. That day, and all that flowed from it, changed our lives forever. It changed us.

It’s not so much the battering ram itself, though it is a pretty mean looking tool. I’m more bothered by the idea of it all. A bunch of guys standing outside, ramming (hence the name) this big ‘ole heavy thing into your door, again and again. The door you’ve always trusted to tuck you in at night and keep out the boogey men. Now, here it is, splintering and cracking and shredding to pieces, until it simply falls apart. And that’s just where it all begins. Next, the guys come jumping through the breach, likely as not with guns drawn and an attitude that would really piss you off, if you weren’t so scared.

We all hear about these things but, typically, they have nothing to do with us. Battering rams and such are brought out for drug busts and SWAT operations. We assume there are bad guys behind the door who will be scurrying about trying to hide the dastardly things they are doing. They might quickly flush or otherwise dispose of all the evidence. They might shoot without warning. We figure a battering ram is necessary – to catch them; to protect the good guys at the door, who need the element of surprise. And force. And power.

They didn’t need any of those things with us. We were a doctor, a lawyer, two children and our dogs. They wanted documents. We would have handed them over without the guns.

That day with the battering ram turned into years of much anguish for us. This blog will be a place to discuss things that happen. Bad things, yes, but also the wonderful things that, somehow, manage to live within, throughout and on the other side of all the hardship. This discussion will visit the pain from which we all recoil, and the beauty that lifts us up, like the first sun upon the horizon of each new day.

I’m just getting started here, but I look forward to the discourse.

5 comments:

  1. I love the voice. You can let your anger out here without doing anything but good for your manuscript.

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  2. Good going, Donna. One of the phrases in my book, Target: Pain Doc, is a quote from a former US Attorney who switched sides. "They go where the money is and the guns aren't" That's what makes us doctors easy targets. Check out my blog, www.alternativetopain.wordpress.com and make comments there.

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  3. Great first post! Definitely terrifying and intense. It's still sometimes hard to believe that these things can happen to the good guys, even though they do.

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  4. I loved the image of the battering ram. It is a great start to your new blog site. I look forward to future posts.

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  5. The injustice of it all, hard to read, can't imagine what it was like to experience it. No one should. How many others have been unfairly targeted; you are willing and courageous enough to speak out. I'm glad you did!!

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