Rock Bottom
Well, I thought things were bad with my last post, awhile back. It’s been two weeks since I could even post, because a catastrophic event happened just as the holiday season set upon us. My house was broken into, in broad daylight, while I was at Borias’ acupuncture session. Thieves took my iMac, Macbook Pro, brand new Canon 5DMarkII, with lens, and worst, my back up drive with 15 thousand photos on it. Worthless to the thieves, priceless to me.
I came home to see my hose had been dragged to the front door, which I found odd. My back gate had been unsecured all month, after losing my keys at the U2 concert. My landlord dragged his feet in bringing me a copy, even coming once when I wasn’t home, yet not leaving it anywhere. So the thieves had easy access to the yard, then broke through a back door. I had no renter’s insurance, like an idiot. Just never have. It didn’t occur to me. Yet I lost over ten thousand dollars worth of stuff, and my entire business came to a screeching halt. Just when it was starting to take off.
It kills me to lose all those photos, all the dogs I’ve taken photos of, not to mention thousands of my own dog. Images I’ll never get back. Thankfully some are online, on my website, but they’re lower resolution, and just a tiny drop in the bucket of what I had. A good friend saved all the ones I sent via email, and kindly burned them all on a dvd for me. The thieves left an old external HD that had very old photos on it, and luckily,Borias’ puppy pics and such. So that’s something to be grateful for. But I had just bought that new camera a week before. I spent a settlement for a Service dog access violation on it, and the thieves even took the box and receipt.
I’ve gone over those images so many times, spent so many hours editing them, sorting them out, that my mind keeps flashing them. It feels like they took a piece of my soul. There are dogs that I recognize on the street, or at events, that I’ve taken a few photographs of somewhere. They’re like my friends! I had been planning on making a book about Borias, and doing a coffee table version with his many images. I wanted to make a tribute that I could treasure forever, and share with the world. I hope to still do so, but it’s just terrible that a good three years or so of his life are now missing in images. Everything I’ve taken since getting a professional camera and falling in love with photography.
Words can’t even begin to express how violated I feel. My sense of security is just not what it once was. They had to have been watching to see when I was gone with Borias, which is truly scary and creepy. Also difficult, I had upcoming photo shoots to do. But I was dead in the water with no gear, no computer, nothing. And it figures, people are really starting to call for sessions just after this happened.
I’m having a tremendously hard time dealing with this. Hard to feel the same way about my neighborhood, my house. I sought solace in going to a church I had been meaning to try out for months. Mission Gathering in North Park, a very progressive, small congregation. From the moment I came in, I felt at home. Then to my surprise, the pastor came to talk to me, and I discovered he “knew” me from around town, and lived just a few blocks away. He’s an incredibly cool guy, and the church is going to help me by having a fundraiser in about a week, at a restaurant. The pastor called me shortly after I left that day, to tell me that. Suddenly I didn’t feel so alone.
Then the news called to do a story on me, after I told them of what happened. Another blessing. Both channel 10 and 8 did a story, on the same day. I learned there had been 33 robberies this past month in a one mile radius of my place! Wow. That became 34 when the day of that news broadcast, my new pastor’s house was broken into…the morning of his birthday! I felt horrible for him. I had even gone up and down his street a few times that night, with Borias, keeping a look out. Thieves didn’t take his laptop, but were going to, so who knows, maybe they got spooked.
Here’s a link to the 10 news story http://www.10news.com/news/21791178/detail.html
Then a woman I see regularly walking her dog got hit by the burglars, just another block away from my pastor! They tried to take her paintings of all things. Seems those thieves are combing the neighborhood. I just found out that the fingerprints taken for my house are viable, and they’re seeing if they have a record. Let’s hope so, and that they are caught. I’m sure my stuff is long gone (though maybe, just maybe my hard drive is still laying around!) but it can stop them from hurting anyone else.
What a horrid thing to do at any time, let alone Christmas.
I’m touched by the kindness of people, too, though. A wonderful man who saw the news stories contacted me, and he just purchased a brand new Macbook Pro for me, in exchange for a free photo shoot of his German Shepherd, and anything he wants by way of prints and products. Bless him! I went two weeks without a computer. My only connection to the internet was my iPhone, which doesn’t work so well in my house!
So I feel blessed with some of the connections I’ve made with people out of this horrible event. Some hard lessons have been learned. And I’m trying to recover. I really need to get a camera as soon as possible, so I can fulfill the session requests. That was such an awesome camera, too!! Plus my favorite lens was on it.
I believe everything happens for a reason. Sometimes it’s very hard to see, but when we look back, there were definitely good reasons. I am counting my blessings…I have lost many, many images of my beautiful boy, memories of large chunks of his life…but I still have him. And that’s what’s important.
