Does This Gun Make Me Look Fat?

    It was a typical summer day in southern Virginia.  The sky was blue and clear, the sun shone warm and bright.  I was rushing around the house herding our two young sons out the door.  I don’t remember any more where we were going, just that I was in a hurry to get there. My husband, a police officer in a nearby city was out in the garage where he kept his gear rustling around in some cabinets. 

    The boys were standing by the front door, the little one picking on his older brother as was so often the case.  They were used to a life where Mommy prevailed and a day with Daddy was more like a holiday than anything else.  This was one of those days.

   From out in the garage my husband bellowed, a hint of near panic in his voice, “Honey!  Come out here!  I need you!”

    “I’m busy!  I yelled back.  “What do you need?”  Annoyance hinted at in my own voice.

    “Come out here!”

    Dropping whatever it was that I was doing, I dramatically stomped my way through the kitchen and to the garage door, huffing and grumbling the whole way.  “What is so important now that I had to stop what I was doing?”  I demanded, hands on my hips.

     My husband stood sideways, shoulders back, hands on his own hips.  The very bottom of the holster on his hip peeking out of the bottom of his blue polo shirt.  “Honey?  Does this gun make me look fat?”

    Seriously? 

    Yes, seriously.

    I have known from the very first day that my husband and I met that he was law enforcement.  It was in his very genes.  Most little boys, at some time in their lives, claim to want to be a policeman when they grow up.  Most grow out of it.  Some never can. Some men- and women- just are cops.  They were born to wear the badge and I am sure many of you know exactly what I am talking about.

   At the time we met, my love was a volunteer auxiliary officer in his home town and a college security officer.  He dreamed of a career as a police officer and was very clear about his goals from the very start of our relationship.  With my own degree in forensic science, I was very comfortable with the world of criminal justice and supported his dreams wholeheartedly.

    Five years later when we relocated to Virginia and he was offered an appointment to the police academy, his recruiting officer called me.  He outlined for me the rigors of police work including crazy shifts, long hours, missed holidays and unexpected overtime.  None of it was surprising to me and I assured the recruiter that I was behind my husband’s career aspirations 110%.

    I would like to talk to that recruiter now and ask him why he didn’t warn me that my husband would one day be in a panic over the girth of a handgun on his hip.  I’d like to inquire as to why he didn’t outline for me the need to always check his pockets based on the possibility of finding stray (unfired) bullets in the dirty laundry.  I would especially have appreciated a heads up on the likelihood of my husband calling me at work and asking me if it was all right if he went out to pick up hookers later that night, as part of a sting operation of course.

     The first year that we were on the job was the hardest. I say “we” because as any police spouse knows, when the one you love serves and protects, you do too.  Long, sleepless nights, anxious phone calls to fellow spouses when word of a police involved shooting is heard and fear that each and every time you kiss your spouse goodbye it might be the very last time become a way of life.  Trying to juggle the needs of the family with the needs of the job sometimes seems insurmountable. 

    The boys are older now and we have settled into a routine that very often does not include their father.  We go to work, school and daycare, visit family and attend tae kwon do lessons, grocery shop, go bowling and birthday parties as a family of three.  The times when my husband can join us are occasions to be celebrated, not only because he is there with us but because his presence means that he made it through another four day rotation alive and well.

    Ours is not a life for everyone.  But it is the perfect life for me.  I am proud of the man I married for who he is as much as for what he does.  The little idiosyncrasies of police life that others may swear they could live without are the very things that I enjoy about our family. Text messages sent in “ten codes” may seem cold and impersonal to some but to me they are as romantic as poetry.  The gift of the end of a roll of crime scene tape just because he knows I might be able to use it in my forensic science unit with chemistry students might not make sense to my girlfriends but to me it’s the most thoughtful thing ever.

   We may not be a conventional family but we are a strong family.   A family connected to other families just like ours by the thin blue line of courage and integrity.  How many families can say that?

   How many wives can say that the best part of their day is an eight a.m. phone call at the end of the night shift with the simple two word phrase “I’m Alive”?