Tighter Turn on a Dime

Hubby walking his granddaughter to school a few years ago.

There is a phrase that comes frequently to mind in my elder age and that is "Life can turn on a dime". According to one derivation: "If something happens on a dime, it happens suddenly, in complete contrast to what was happening before." This can apply to people or it can apply to your life. 

If you have had a sudden tragedy, you definitely understand the full meaning of this phrase. It is like a car accident on a sunny morning ahead of schedule as you are heading to your first day on a job that you really wanted. It is like the birth of a beautiful child that had a terrible challenge in physical or mental development. It is like your flooded home without flood insurance on the day you have made the first payment to your child's tuition or the last to your mortgage. 

I accept that it also can mean a sharp turn for the better in your life, but I do not think most people think of it this way. Maybe I am wrong...lord knows I have been so wrong before.

My daughter was called up to Pennsylvania yesterday to be there for her college friend.  I may have written before that this college friend has a nine-year-old suffering from incurable brain cancer.  The experts predicted six months to two years of life.  Well, even with experimental proton therapy and getting on a list for experimental treatments and tens of thousands spent from savings and donations, the sweet blond-haired girl is now going into a coma and death.  She may have passed as I write this post.  Both parents and the younger brother are lost in this turning of the dime.

I cannot get my mind around this tragedy even though I know this kind of thing happens every day to honest and hard-working people.  My crying will not change the outcome.

I visited my daughter this weekend before her devastating news and she casually, very casually, mentioned that she had been "sexually assaulted" on the street as she was walking home a few days prior!  The scenario was she was walking down the sidewalk off a fairly busy street in mid-day when she saw a young black man ahead.  She has a number of African American friends, so she was not on guard until the black man did not move but forced her to the side.  He then slapped her behind as he passed.  She had the sense to bring out her phone and tell him she was taking pictures of him and sending them to her husband and that he better move on.  He casually smiled and that was when she realized he was  "not all there" but perhaps mentally off.

He did hurry off and she called the police.  They were not at all concerned and even though she sent pictures.  They gave various excuses where they could not assist.  She posted her experience to the various "Ring" folks in her neighborhood.  (This is a neighborhood watch group formed by those who have the Ring security on the doorbells.)  

As the hours passed a number of people called the police noticing that this same man tried to break into their cars and their houses which was documented by "Ring".

My daughter's neighborhood is busy, upper-middle-class and full of well-educated, mostly white people (see photo above).  I am only adding this for background in that crime happens everywhere. Their neighborhood has been having more and more theft problems, but this physical assault was the first.

I guess I was dismayed that the Police would not act on the assault (probably more so because this was my beautiful daughter) but they finally acted on the attempted robberies.  The man is now being held in jail pending a trial and my daughter has to squeeze in a deposition among her many other activities.  And, of course, no matter the outcome, he will probably be released because he is mentally ill and not someone the jails can take care of!

I am thankful that the man was just a bit mentally ill and not a homicidal maniac.  I am thankful my daughter kept her cool.  I am not thankful for what is happening to our society these days.