THE SUM TOTAL

THE SUM TOTAL
September 15, 2010

I am always misplacing things. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I have so many projects in progress at the same time that I just set things aside and then forget where I put them. Or maybe it's just because my memory is failing as I get older. Some things I carefully put in a "safe place" but then can't remember where that logical "safe place" is. Who knows. I just absentmindedly misplace things.

Today I was searching for a very important paper .... surprise! I couldn't find it no matter how many "safe places" I checked. While searching in my sewing/craft/art studio, I picked up an envelope off a shelf. A six by nine inch manilla envelope. On that six by nine inch manilla envelope was written "Jorgensen 0007-10". It was the envelope that had been given to us by the Mason County Sheriff's Office on January 18, 2010.

In the six by nine inch manilla envelope was a white Bic cigarette lighter, 4 quarters, 3 dimes, 1 nickel, and 3 pennies. Your wallet had been removed upon receipt of the envelope.

I removed the contents for the first time and held them in my hand. These were the items in your pocket. Possessions once made warm by the heat of your body. Items removed from your pockets by the same officers that drove away that day when I so desperately needed them to intervene and help me when you had taken all those pills. Those same officers that laughed the second time I called them and told them you were going to commit suicide and I needed their help. And again they drove away. Uncaring hearts, uncaring hands. Hands just doing their job. But to me these things are precious.

The cigarette lighter, 4 quarters, 3 dimes, 1 nickel, and 3 pennies are cold now. I held them in my warm hand. A great wave of sadness swept over me. To those hands just doing their job these few items were the sum total of my son's life at the moment of his death. It is hard for me to think about those hands removing these precious items from his pocket. Removing a wallet, a white Bic cigarette lighter, 4 quarters, 3 dimes, 1 nickel, and 3 pennies and placing them in a six by nine inch manilla envelope on which they had written "Jorgensen 0007-10".