“Ope. There’s a turkey behind me.” I hear a car door open. “That’s right. Move along.” These are the conversations that I am privy to as a deputy’s wife. I was talking with my husband one morning as he sat on a tree in the road waiting for the township shops to arrive. I laughed so hard to hear this exchange. Moments later I hear him say, “It’s back.” And then he starts gobbling at it. I asked him if he was going to need to call for backup and before we hung up the phone he promised that if he got into an altercation with the turkey, he’d let me know. These are the moments that bring laughter and allow the job to feel a little less heavy. I needed that laugh that day because anger and heaviness had been consuming my soul in the days prior.
Of course, the entire conversation was not that light. My husband went silent to listen to the radio transmission just moments before. I was able to hear it as well. His Sheriff called into dispatch stating that he was in his personal vehicle and happened upon a car stopped in the middle of the roadway. He believed that the driver was passed out behind the wheel with a foot on the brake. I could hear the concern and compassion in his voice. Moments later he stated that he could see a meth pipe in the driver’s hand.
I told my husband that divine intervention was at work. The driver passed out, foot on the brake, in the middle of the road in a high traffic area in our city. Our Sheriff just happened to drive by and spot it prior to the area businesses opening for the day. God was protecting people and He was using our LEO’s to do it.
This job is a mix of funny stories and heartbreaking tragedies. Most calls fall somewhere in between those extremes, but it takes a very special person to be able to handle each and every one of those situations. Our LEOS face calls that run the gamut all shift long. They are forced to push aside their emotions from one call in order to effectively handle the next one. They do what seems absolutely impossible to me. The empath in me would need days to recover from some of those calls, yet these men and women file the emotions away and run to the next call.
To my fellow LEO wives/significant others, remember to embrace the laughter when it comes and allow it to fill your hearts. Our loved ones are truly doing God’s work. Take comfort in knowing that. Tune out the loud minority of people who are anti-LE and listen to God’s message alone. That morning, that turkey was sent to make my husband and I both laugh when we needed it the most. Keep your eyes out for your “turkey”.
l Michelle l