Our son is Luke. This is written by our daughter-in-law Trish for her husband LUKE.
I have been sitting and thinking of the right thing to say or whether to not say anything at all, which is probably the best route. It’s just not in my nature to always stay quiet, just as so many are voicing their opinions because they feel frustrated, angry and mostly alone, especially given what we have gone through with covid. I think it’s important for people to know that on the other side of my husbands uniform is a person. An amazing human being. And incredible loving father. While not perfect, he is pretty darn close and truthfully a much better human being than I am. I am trying to understand how people feel and I will not say that they don’t have validity in their feelings about injustice in this world. I won’t say there is no injustice in this world, to live in this world is to suffer injustice, no one can escape it and yes some experience it at varying degrees for varying periods of time. But what I want to say is the time we forget the humanity in another is the time we have become the ugliness we hate. Over the past few years every summer people march down the streets of New York and call for the death of my husband. Maybe not by name but by association. I have received messages and emails and texts and calls from people I know, and some I don’t that have said the most vile things about me, my husband, and even our daughter. I do not share these with Luke and he does not engage in social media except for the occasional browsing of my Facebook to post a picture of Emma. Every night he kisses me as he leaves for work and says “see you tomorrow.” Because we do not say goodbye in our home. As he walks down the hall, I always wait until I can’t see him anymore before I close the door. This past week has been the worst I can remember. Acts of violence against police in the name of progress, arson and stores ransacked and looted. It’s not just stuff stolen, this is my home and this is where live, people’s livelihoods and they’ve already lost so much. I’ve watched the ugliness and viciousness and the judgement of others as they say they want to better lives for others. But I don’t see that, I see people who want to tear others down, not help others to rise up. To say I had many sleepless nights is an understatement. I suddenly was picturing my life without him, and it felt like the world was falling out from under me. The man who never misses a chance to bring me flowers, who cries if I go on an overnight trip because he will miss me, who has never once let me down, who dances ballet with our daughter and plays make-over with her, who every other day brings home a treat or small present for her. He is the only person in this world who has never let me down and always makes me feel completely safe and loved. After a long day at work, hard days sometimes, I come home and I talk to him and I am always surprised by how much I like him and how happy I am when I am with him. He always makes me laugh and always finds small ways to make me smile. He has never said an off color or even slightly mean or condescending thing to me, even when he is angry, which is rare, and which I can not say is true for myself. He thanks me, for everything I do, no matter how small. He takes who he is with him to work, this amazing kindness and lightness of being, to meet him you’d never know the weight and fear he carries. That he doesn’t tell people what he does for a living, he doesn’t park in front of our home in case people see where he lives, he doesn’t order food from places who know he’s a cop if he doesn’t know they are friendly. He spends long nights and sometimes days dealing with people who want to hurt him, want to kill him, want to see him suffer. He’s been punched, kicked, hit, spit on, shit on, pissed on, called every name in the book, been lied about, he’s been lied to and people wouldn’t know this because he never complains and he never brings it home, his smile is just as warm. It’s hard to see people who want him to suffer because they are suffering. And this is what I feel. Not a single person I see calling for police to fail, for them to die, for them to lose their livelihoods and lives, knows what it’s like to walk in their shoes. The issues are so much more complex than just the police. But I can’t make you see that. I can’t make you see that the hate and anger you give does not change the problems you see. I cannot make you see that the problems you see, you don’t actually see, you see the distorted prism of public opinion and twisted conjecture. You see the tip of the iceberg and are blind to the mountain underneath, the thousands of interconnecting systems and agendas and humans that got us to this point, that keep us in this way, that wont be changed if you kill, destroy, and dehumanize every police officer. That even if you removed the perceived threat, nothing would change and it would actually get so much worse for everyone. There is room to be against injustice and racism and not to hate and dehumanize my husband, me or our child. This will be the only thing I say on this topic moving forward. I know that some want me to be silent, that some will be mad and offended by me, my husband and even our daughter, and some just by our very existence if nothing else, there is so much anger and I get it you need a place to put it. I thought about shutting down all my social media for a time, which I normally do during the summer, because trust me by the time the hurricanes and snow comes, you will all forget how angry you were until next summer. But I don’t ever forget, I know with the warming of the seasons the danger to my family returns. It’s too painful for me to see the hate and ugliness in this world, on both sides of the issue. So here is what I aim to do, as often as I can and that is to continue posting pictures of my family, because I want everyone to see this amazing father, husband, son, uncle, friend, human, and yes... NYPD Police Sergeant. I’m so proud of him and love him with all of my being and I know this will all embarrass him and he is too stoic to say anything. I want everyone to see the wonderful person he is everyday so that maybe you can learn to calm yourself and think rationally about the human on the other side of that uniform. The only way we all win is by listening to each other and not shutting each other down. See his humanity and it will make it possible to see yours.
-Trish
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