A Titanic Moment

First a little background, before today's post- Last year, on November 13, 2008, my daughter was scheduled to have my grandson via C-section. So, on November 12 (and a few days prior) we were running errands, going for Ultra Sounds and what not. One of the errands was to pick up a co-op order from my friend who lives just a mile or so away. I was headed to her house as I was calling her. No answer, so I turned around to go back to the house- we were going to wait for my friend to call and then get some lunch (as I recall!) Well, as I pulled into my driveway, my friend calls- very pregnant daughter says- I am going to run in and use the bathroom, I said ok, I will wait for you. Told my friend I would pick up my stuff in a few minutes. Then I thought- I better go and use the bathroom too. So I ran in very quickly and we went back out to the car. "I guess we left our purses in the house"- then a sickening feeling came over me- I knew I hadn't taken my purse in the house- I left the car running and everything. Our purses were stolen! My poor daughter just broke down and cried hysterically. Her camera, her diabetes kit, her wallet (our purses were Coaches -Ebay splurge and outlet splurge!) I had just cashed a $100 check for my son, my wallet, a disposable camera, a Coach zipper purse, rosary beads, make-up- you name it- our lives were in our purses. We called the cops and they performed their CSI duties (sounds more exciting saying CSI- they fingerprinted and that was about it.) The next day we were overjoyed at the birth of my little grandson of course, but we never got our purses back or anything...until...
Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2009 (almost a year later) we were taking little grandson to get his first haircut at the Mall (my friend is a hairdresser in the JC Penney's salon). While I was waiting for my daughter to pay- I listened to my voice mail from a call marked "Private" that had just come in. My jaw dropped to the floor! It was a Deputy Sheriff saying he had some of my property that I had previously reported stolen. Yep, they found the purses. I called him back and he said that the purses were ruined they had been submerged, but to come and get them if I wanted to. If I wanted to? Well, curiosity was about to kill me- of course I wanted to get them. The next day, I went down to the Property and Evidence Section of the Pinellas County System. Gave the lady my claim number and then she handed me my driver's license and my insurance card. That was it! I said, well where are the purses? Apparently, they hadn't been "released" so she called the deputy and he released them since there was no way there could have been any prints for evidence. They were in one of those big evidence bags and they were not pretty. Not pretty at all. The first thing I noticed was this ribbon my daughter had tied on the front of hers in memory of her little neighbor who had died of cancer a few months before. It was kinda eerie looking at those once beautiful purses. What was left? What was in them? I couldn't wait to get those nasty, mildewy, snail ridden purses home to investigate. (They were pretty bad, so I didn't want to, well, I wanted to, open them in the car, but thought I would wait until I got home and could properly delve into the ruined bags ie: with some rubber gloves on!) Got home, got the gloves on- took my scissors to cut open that huge evidence bag. (ok, I don't get the chance to use the word evidence that much!) Here is where it got weird- I felt like the little old lady- the 101 year old Titanic survivor- from the 1997 movie. (For those of you who haven't seen the movie 20 times like I have- the star in the movie, survived- and 80 some years later was contacted to view things that were taken from the cabin that she was in). Digging through the stuff was like taking apart a time capsule from our past. Oh, there is my wallet- and a spider crawled out of the rosary box- the rosary rusted and broken. Wow,the thief left me .07! Most of my stuff was in DD's purse- her camera was there, her diabetes kit and she had some gift cards- the Babies R Us one had $9.80 on it. Her wallet had seen better days. Her purse was full of dirt and leaves. Oh, did I tell you they found it in a ditch, or I guess we are assuming it was a ditch- could have been woods, but a lady a few miles away from here- I guess called the sheriff''s- they made it sound like it was near her house somewhere. I decided that I was going to clean up the wallet- I washed it out- used some Clorox Anywhere spray and some Odo Ban and hung it on my clothesline for a few days- believe it or not, I recommissioned it- it is in my purse now- resurrected- visiting my "now". Let's face it, a lot happened in this past year! The last time we saw these purses and their content, our precious JR wasn't even born yet and now it seems like he has always been with us. Our purses are now like relics- oh, I forgot- there was also a Confession prayer card with a picture of our Lord on it. I really, really hope that whoever stole these purses needed the money in a very desperate way. I had a feeling we would get them back, but...