By Abby Eckel, Police1 Special Contributor
I sometimes wish my husband had a desk job. There are days where I refuse to turn on the TV or skim through a media outlets, or peruse Facebook or Twitter because it’s too hard to read all the hate. Some days I have to make myself actively stop letting my imagination run wild when my husband doesn’t return my text within the hour.
“What if he’s hurt? What if he had a car stop that went terribly, terribly wrong? What if I never hear or see him again?” I can already feel the tears pricking at my eyes as I fight to stop myself from continuing on about the “what ifs.”
There are many nights where I feel the hard lump in my throat creeping up as I find myself alone having too much time to think. These are the nights that I push through tired eyes just to hear the garage door open and hear the Velcro pull from his vest. It’s like instant relief that he’s home safe, at least for one more night.
Bargaining with God
Like so many other police wives, I pray and pray hard that my husband will be coming home at the end of the night. I find myself bargaining with God to let my husband come home safe.
I won’t lie and say this life is a cakewalk. This life is not for the faint of heart. This life is hard and it gnaws at my emotions daily.
But then I think how my husband must feel. I think about how the other men and women who — day in and day out — puts on those boots, vests, and badges feel. And I feel terrible for feeling the slightest bit of angst when they’re the ones out there putting their life on the line every day for the very people who have so violently voiced their distrust and hate for them, yet still expect them to be there at their beck and call when a problem arises.
It seems the current “in” thing to do is to bad mouth and bash the people wearing the badge. To instill in their own children the very hatred they have for the men and women of law enforcement, forcing their children to believe LEOs are bigots out to do nothing but keep them from doing whatever they want.
In a time when these men and women are watched like hawks, ridiculed daily, and judged on the actions they’ve taken by people who would shudder in fear should they walk even a few steps in those boots, I want to say thank you.
Not because my husband is an officer (other members of my family are as well), but because I’m a community member, a citizen, a wife, and I respect the job that you do. I know I could never do what they do. I know there are more good officers than bad officers — many, many more, in fact — who just want to do what they were sworn to do: protect and serve.
A Message for Citizens
To any citizen reading this, I know these times are not easy for anyone. We all know. But before you open your mouth — or get behind a keyboard where you can hide — to judge and degrade the man I love and the family I’ve come to know and consider my own, try (and I use the word ‘try’ because you will never have the slightest idea of truly knowing) to think about what these men and women do every day.
Every single day.
Thank a police officer.
Not because you have to, but because they do a job that only few can do and they do it while being shot at, and they do it when they’re tired, when they miss their families, when it’s Christmas, when it’s an anniversary, when it’s a child’s birthday.
They do it always.
