This story first appeared as a guest post at Christmas Pie Crafts. Thank you to Jill for hosting my guest post. I look forward to hosting a guest post from Jill in the very near future. What a really good idea, and very friendly blogging.
We never thought it would happen to us. Growing
up in Johannesburg, crime was all around us, but somehow we were much more
aware of danger then. We moved to a village in Surrey. It all seemed idyllic,
just what we had imagined, and longed for. A large garden, neighbours separated
by woods, no street lighting. Surely no evil would be lurking here.
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| Leafy Surrey, no evil here |
How wrong we were. Just three months after
moving in, still unpacking, decorating and renovating, a burglar broke in to
our home. He forced a bathroom window
and ransacked our property. Nothing was left untouched. And he stole just about
everything of value, some items of great sentimental value. Our lovely old
rescue cat, Rosie, never quite recovered from the fright of it, and we lost her
a few months later.
The Police came and rattled off the
statistics about burglary in Surrey. It wasn’t very reassuring but we withstood
the assault and moved on with our lives. It wasn’t going to happen to us again.
We beefed up window and door locks, fenced the garden and secured the garden
gates. No alarm system, we said. We don’t need it.
Oh, but we did need it. Four months later,
coming home from work early on a Friday afternoon, I saw a man at the front
door, inside the front door, inside the house. Almost in slow motion I jumped
out of the car, trying to get the key in the front door, while dialing 999 and
shouting at the operator for the Police.
Luckily for me, the burglar escaped
through the broken window at the back of the house. The Police dog arrived
minutes later and gave chase, but never caught him. He took nothing with him,
but had caused several thousands pounds of damage breaking into the house.
We had a terrible weekend. I suffered from
flashbacks, thinking about what could have happened if he hadn’t run away. I
had run into the road to shout for help, but no-one could hear me. There was
no-one around.
We ordered an alarm system, with
monitoring and a link to the Police. We paid a security company to be first
call, so that I would never face a choice like that again.
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| Darling Brin |
And we found our darling Boxer dog, Brin.
My saviour. Brin has the most effervescent personality. He’s a real human dog,
very sensitive. And he loves his walks. It was because of him that I started to
leave the house again. He depended on me and I needed to be brave. Slowly, the
terrible migraines lifted. The little panic attacks receded. I actually started
to enjoy the walks, too. And Brin grew into my steady companion. He’s a big
boy, so provides quite a presence to strangers, too.
I can honestly say that little puppy saved
my life, gave me courage, and showed so much commitment to our relationship.
Five months later we brought Themba home.
Themba means ‘hope’ in Zulu. You can read Themba's story here.