He kept thinking about the officer who made the arrest back in Eugene. He wanted to do a job that made a difference in people’s lives. For the record, I wanted him to be high school teacher, but this is what he chose to do with his life.
I wasn’t happy, we fought for months about it. But in the end, I said, “If this is what you want to do, I’ll help you do it.”
It’s been a long journey, from then to now. RD and I have been together for 33 years, and for 27 years and 10 months of that (yes, I’ve been counting) he was a police officer.
He was a street officer that entire time. That means that I’ve been the partner of a beat cop for almost 28 years.
I was there when he drove home from the basic academy with double pneumonia. The country doctor said he’d “Never seen a man still on his feet with lungs so bad.” Then the doctor let him drive alone all the way back to the city. RD was convinced he was going to be fired for getting sick. (Spoiler, he wasn’t.)
Before we had kids, I worked at the front desk of the old South Precinct for three and a half years, so I was there when arrived at the end of his trainee rotation. We worked the same shift, same days off. So, I listened to him take calls, give commands, get into fights and car chases. I heard him say shots fired, when someone shot at his car during a pursuit. My supervisor stood at my shoulder, holding his breath, hating every moment of my being there. I also took the phone call when another police wife found her husband dead in the bathtub after a police funeral. I’ve never had any illusions about the cost of this job. During the time I worked at South Precinct, the bureau lost three officers to the job, we knew all of them. But the truth was, I preferred knowing. Being in the dark, the not knowing, was always the hardest part of the job.