Parts of the craziness surrounding us because of the pandemic feel very familiar to me.  It feels like I’ve been here before.

The uncertainty.  The concerns.  More bad news coming at me every day.  The world as I know it being gone.

I felt this after my son, David Glasser, who was a Phoenix Police Officer, was killed in the line of duty on May 18, 2016.  So many unknowns.  Painful changes.  Dark days and even darker nights.

First came the unbelievable shock of his death.  Next was the huge funeral -the majority of that day is covered in a fog of pain and grief in my memory.  And then- somehow – those of us that loved him had to find a way to start moving through our days – shell-shocked by what had happened.  My mind swirled daily around the hope that it was all a nightmare….. a long nightmare.

Bad news grew as the reality of life without Davey become clearer.  So much lost – how can we possibly go on?  All of my plans and dreams for the future included Davey.  Every one of them was ripped away.

When our framily (family and friends who are family) got together in those first months, we would often sit in silence….staring.  There was nothing to say.  It was all too horrible.

For months after Davey was killed I wondered why people I saw in public were smiling.  What did they have to laugh about?  It was hard being out around people who were happy with all their dreams still intact.  I felt like an island of pain and grief moving among people who had no idea what it feels like to have your whole world explode.

That’s one of the big differences about our situation today – we are all in it together.  We are all affected.  We are sharing this experience and – for me – this makes it a little easier.

Another huge difference about our situation now is that we are figuring out how to get back our favorite things.   We are playing sports again, we are going out to eat again and we are having parties and seeing our family again.

But Davey will not be coming back. There is no future on this earth that includes him.

That makes it so much harder.

Miss you, Davey.

Love you.