Furious

My grandmother's house was burglarized yesterday.  She and my dad had gone out to lunch, and surprised the kid before he was done, but not before he'd ransacked the bedrooms. He managed to make off with some jewelry, a ton of quarters (she's been trying to put together multiple State quarter collections for years, for the grand- and great grand kids), and a gun, among other things. 

It wasn't my home, but I feel violated all the same. When my dad was telling me about it, I felt helpless and angry and heartbroken.  I have so many cherished memories there from childhood.  Everything in that house, every room, is tied to some memory of mine.  I used to sit for hours on Gramma's bed and oh-so-carefully go through her jewelry box, trying everything on and modeling it in front of the full-length mirror on her bathroom door.  To think that some punk kid went prowling through her house, rifled through her things, and unceremoniously dumped all of her jewelry into a back pack makes me livid. 

The good news is that he didn't find my grandmother's wedding rings, as they had at first feared, and he didn't have time to find any of the other valuable items he might have if they'd been gone longer.  The best news is that neither my father nor my grandmother were hurt.  Daddy might have been, if the burglar hadn't been able to escape out the back door like he did.  If he'd had to go back through the house to escape, he'd have run smack into my dad.  That meeting would not have ended well.  

They did see him as he was running out of the back yard, as did their neighbor, so they had a description to give to the police, who found 4 good finger prints left behind by the burglar.  What's more is that this kid has been seen riding around that neighborhood many times before, so there's a good chance that he lives near-by.  It's not very bright of him if that's the case, but it will make the detective's work easier.  I sincerely hope that they get him, but it's very unlikely that my grandmother will get any of her things back.

I'd really like to throttle this kid, whoever he is.  Not only did he have the effrontery to invade my grandmother's home and steal her things, but he even flipped my dad off as he was riding away.  The icing on the cake?  Daddy is now afraid to leave Gramma alone, so he's canceled the visit we'd had planned for August.