Violated: A list of questions

For the intruders --

Had you watched me? It seems you had. Was it for weeks, months even? Did you know how long I had been home with a baby but without a husband? Did you realize we had finally left town? Would you have come even if we hadn't?

What must it have been like to trip our alarm – greeted by 95 decibels – but then to delight in the realization that no one was coming?

Did you console your conscience by saying we had too much? Or that our insurance would cover our losses?

How will you feel when you attempt to steal my infant child’s identity, now that you have his social security card? Will there be any guilt at all when you destroy the good standing of a child that hasn’t even taken his first steps?

Did you ever dream for a moment that you would get such an incredible payday? I imagine you were quite surprised when you opened our safe to find much more than our weapons. Could you have ever dreamed of getting all my precious jewelry – even my wedding rings – in one fell swoop?

How could you have known, when you grabbed my Dutch Doll quilt to pad the television, that you were taking my most precious family heirloom…a piece of my life spanning 30 years and made by my beloved Mam-maw who’s gone forever? Could you have imagined how hard I would weep to discover that unexpected vacuum?

Did your girlfriend who went through the things in my closet touch any of my clothes? Try any of them on? I wouldn’t be able to tell…she was so courteous to put my empty jewelry boxes back just as she found them.

Did you laugh and sneer when you rifled through our private things – intimate things that only a husband and wife share?

Did you boast when you realized that your crime went undiscovered for nearly a week?

How could you know that the ramifications of your actions would be so drastic and far reaching? Did you have any idea that the situation would spark a fire in family relationships – strengthening some while utterly destroying still others?

Would you have imagined that two people with so many things would feel so helpless at choosing a qualified attorney? You couldn’t have foreseen the obstacles we would encounter with the alarm company and insurance adjuster. Did you simply block out any thought of the hardships you would cause?

Did you know you were hitting a military family? Did you feel any guilt when you pushed my husband’s flight suits aside to take our things? Would it have changed your mind to know of a husband fighting in such a remote location that his wife and baby still wait for him more than two weeks after the crime? Could you have even imagined that there were still such remote places on this earth?

If you had known I would be distressed to the point of physical pain, or that my child would get so sick that I would rush him to the hospital this weekend, would you have shown any mercy?

Would you have ever guessed that this experience would be so incredibly humbling, frightening and strangely cathartic for our family?

If my baby and I had been home, would you have come anyway? Would you have killed us?