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The Chaos Mini-Series

Welcome to my chaotic life of FIVE small children and a traveling husband! This blog is actually a "work in progress" and serves as a loose outline for a humorous non-fiction book I strive to publish by the end of this calendar year. Each entry builds upon the one just prior to it so it is best to begin with Part I. This story begins just four short years ago when a tsunami of unfortunate, tragic and hectic events brutally pounded us one right after another. As my family and I endured and eventually overcame each wave of misfortune, we kept our heads (barely) above water and held high, eyes wide open and hearts on "stand by" as we witnessed new opportunities and blessings emerge from the CHAOS...

Monday, March 29, 2010

When can I have my nervous breakdown already?...Part XX

We were completely helpless. We could not get off this island until the first "canoe taxi" arrived to pick us up at 8am. We laid awake the entire night imagining the horrific scene over and over again and reenacting it to figure out how it all went down.

I assume that our friend did not want to tell us too much. She actually called my husband directly and prepped him on what to tell me word for word for fear that I go into labor. Didn´t matter much. I read it on his face from the minute he answered the phone call.

Right after she told me that the children were unharmed and had remained deeply asleep, she confessed that the thieves had kicked in our bedroom door after breaking the lock and had taken every single piece of jewelry that I owned. This was indeed my entire stock. I took nothing but my simple wedding band to our rustic getaway and left all else openly exhibited and “there for the taking” right on top of my dresser in an unlocked glass case. Serve yourselves guys. My entire collection was purchased for me by my husband because ironically, I was wiped out clean ten years before while vacationing in Key West and a robber entered into my hotel room. Aren´t I just a magnet for good fortune? What are the odds that something like that really happens?

So much for material possessions. Spiritually, I had sensed a very strange vibration to the likes of an out of body experience as soon as the words left my friend´s mouth. I felt a gigantic wave of air in the form of an exhale leave my body, like a giant release and afterward felt much much lighter. I had instantly let go of all attachment to those sentimental objects so willingly and with such gratitude for the safety of my children. After hearing that they were okay, nothing else really mattered and my spirit lightened as I detached. I had actually understood at a cellular level Deepak Chopra´s Law of Detachment.

What really did hurt the most upon later realizations though, were the captured family memories they stole by swiping our cameras, video cameras and laptops. This was painful beyond measure.

Needless to say that this was one of the longest most grueling sleepless nights of our lives and here I was again, very pregnant and not able to just throw myself onto the floor in reckless abandon. I wanted to have my nervous breakdown already and it was never the right time!

The next morning we were off at the crack of dawn waiting with heavy hearts for the native canoe captain to pick us up. Our faces said it all and actually evoked great sadness from those same people that saw us just one day before glowing with contentment. Without uttering a word, everyone knew that something devastating had occurred. And not one of the hotel employees dared to ask what it was.

We began our journey home and the irony was that we had to drive extra, extra slowly as the potholes had been converted into muddy puddles after a tropical rainstorm. Being eight months pregnant and already with contractions, we couldn´t risk me going into premature labor at this point. We had enough on our plate.

Once we arrived to the house, we were received by a terrified staff of domestic help, a friend who was clearly in shock and a bunch of law officers, insurance adjusters and various people. Miraculously, the nannies had managed to get all four kids dressed and out the door for school. They had distracted them to the point that not one child had noticed my beaten down bedroom door nor the muddy boot footprints and filthy hand prints all over the house. Kudos to these ladies who spent the entire night awake in sheer fright, experiencing physical pain from being thrown down, gagged, and with their hands tied tightly behind their backs. How they were able to feed the children breakfast and send them off to school was worthy of an Academy award.

After spending some time at home talking with everybody involved, something did not feel right. One of the housekeepers, a young girl of 16 years, who had just started with us two months before, seemed very calm and way too composed in comparison with the mental status of the others. These ladies were all ready to not only quit the job on the spot, but required serious PTSD therapy; they were traumatized. As we learned about how the robbers entered freely without a forced entry as the house alarm had not yet been activated by that time of night….it started to smell like an inside job. If this were the case, talk about “sleeping with the enemy" under your own roof, feeding and clothing them, and paying them to care for your most precious assets, your children. The thought of this made me sick to my stomach.

To be continued...

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