I had a background with mental health and young offenders. I had been bullied as a kid, and I learned to strike back. A friend was killed in a robbery at the store where he worked. Twice people broke into my parents home, and no one was hurt. Dad had received death threats as a politician, and Sensei helped. I had a background in violence more than most martial artists I encountered. I enjoyed teaching combat oriented classes, but knew I had nothing to do with combat in my life.
A sheriff's deputy showed up at our house, asking my wife for me, but offered no insight as to why. Police showed up at my old job, and a coworker thought I must have some money problems. A cop eventually reached me to let me know I was "safe." In the middle of my nursing shift. Dr K was asking me to get Ativan for one of his patients as this cop on the phone was sounding beside herself with relief, "I'm so glad you are alive!" Then, told me she couldn't tell me why. Ongoing investigation. An interview was scheduled, then cancelled. I notified my colleagues at work, and went about my life mystified and certain an error had been made. I went about my life, but it's not every day multiple law enforcement agencies mount a search for you, worried that you're dead. Our acreage with no visible neighbors usually felt like insulated solitude; now I found myself feeling isolated. I started to play out scenarios in my mind, and I reached out to several old friends around the world.
A month went by. After a few requests for information I was referred to another law enforcement agency. I was told, "You probably don't know these guys, but they had you under surveillance." And then the name. I knew them. I had celebrated weddings and birthdays with them, eaten at their dinner table, slept in their house, drank their beer. I had good memories of them. I had lots of pictures but I had lost touch living so far apart.
Time had not been kind. Drugs and mental illness attacked my old friends and destroyed them. Hunted, and hunting; desperate and murderously angry they watched our home. And I never saw them. They spent days researching me, my jobs, my hobbies, my work, my friends. And I never knew. They broke in to our home, stole some stuff. And I never noticed.
They didn't kill me. They killed other people instead. Just a few hours after leaving me alive, and clueless. What they did to someone else was horrible, cruel, and thorough punishment. I was briefly aware of the news cycle ramped up for shock value.
I was just left alive randomly, and other people weren't. Did my friends think of me as a friend still? Or was I too intimidating? Did I seem too on guard in my obliviousness? Or not worth the effort?
Why the hell was I alive? Armed to the teeth, my old friends had broken into an isolated home, attacked while people were still in bed and killed all witnesses. Why them instead of me? There but for the grace of God...
What did I do wrong? What did I do right? What else did I need to do now? More weapons? More guns? More alarms? More push-ups and chin ups? Maybe a fence and a dog? I have been sedate, enraged, grateful to be alive, and riddled with guilt and in shock for being alive. I have trained until my hands bled, then eaten an entire tiramisu in one sitting. Unable to respond to violence with violence, "I see your violence, and I raise you violent indigestion..." I have cried and laughed at myself, and most days I just forget about it because life didn't stop for me or anyone I care for.
I have my training, but I don't know if I had been tested that I would have survived. Of course, some local K.MMAga suckered in an impressionable student, and his new acquaintances promise to make anyone indestructible. Some days I shrug, some darker moments I have darker day dreams. I am certain martial artists who promise the moon are clueless. I do notice the stupid debates and the crazies online who promise they know what violence is. As close as I was to being a victim of violence I was completely blind, deaf, and dumb to the threat. If my old friends had walked up to me, I still wouldn't have seen the threat - they were friends. Good people died instead of me.
I pray for them. For the dead, for the living. For those left behind, and for those who are still being punished. For my family and friends still here. For those who shouldn't have died. I didn't save myself. I had no say, there was nothing I did right or wrong. I just went to bed, and someone else randomly never woke up again instead of me.
Every minute of the rest of my life is a gift - from a murderer. I don't know why. I probably never will.
