It had been a long week, for a lot of reasons. The last pills of the chemo were taken, a week of indoor recess, a PTO meeting one night, helped at the ENL night another night, stayed at school late to catch up another night…

Friday came and I was all proud of myself I made it and was still breathing.

I even got excited and ready to learn all about this guy James I never knew about who was the brother of Jesus. Inhale peace…

exhale love….

Love and light shining.

Then?

At 3:40 I got a text that my daughter’s phone was stolen.

Exit Deepak Chopra.

Enter Liam Nisson.

I lost my damn mind.

It had been a long hard week.

My girl is a teenage girl taking advanced classes with mid-terms approaching, is in a varsity sport, plays viola in a chamber and regular orchestra, is a commander in ROTC, is extremely kind, and has been dealing with a mom with forced menopausal mood swings due to the stage four cancer diagnosis who is working full time and decided to start a blog that has over three thousand views in four days and is helping other people too.

Neither of us needed this.

I grabbed my nine year old son and became pseudo head of the FBI.

I called my husband.

I called my sister who is a sergeant to tell her to prepare whoever is on duty that I’m coming in.

I texted the teacher who was helping my upset teenager.

I used extremely salty language when I called my dad to ask him to get my other daughter for me.

I looked in the back and my son had tears in his eyes and was breathing heavy. He loves his sister, and was upset for her. I asked if he was ok and his reply?

“I’m trying to meditate.”

That should have been my sign to take a breath, but nope.

Liam Neeson had taken over my body.

I got to school and ran into some other colleagues I know. I told them what happened, and they both said they were so scared of me they wanted to give me their phones.

I was out of the zen zone.

I entered the momma bear zone.

We retraced her steps, and went back to the classroom to wait for the head of security. My son saw someone had written “——- was here” with their name on the board. He went all inspector Gadget on me and declared it may have been whoever wrote their name.

“It was Colonel Mustard in the Library with a candlestick!”

We stayed for over an hour with the teacher, a security guard and the head of security. We know which room it was taken from, and which period. There’s videotape constantly running of hallways, so there is a visual record of the comings and goings.

Twice this week I had Warner Wolf in my head, between the show This is Us and yesterday.

“Let’s go to the videotape”.

We also went to the police station. On top of my sergeant sister, I’ve got a brother in law who is a detective who happened to be by the front desk when we got there. The officer at the front desk is someone I’ve known for over twenty years. My brother is also a police officer. Even with all of the family members, my daughter was still flustered and upset. She was shaking when we left.

I think the hardest thing for her is that someone would do that.

With the paperwork done, I brought maddie to a friends house to try and salvage the day. I then went to my school for movie night, as I had several children tell me over and over they wanted to lay down with me on the floor and watch “Trolls”.

While there, I continued to check the find a Friend app, the iPhone finder, my husband was on the phone with our carrier, and Liam Neeson continued to send text messages to the phone in little sentences.

“I will find you”

“Turn it in before I do.”

“You stole the wrong phone.”

“No charges if it’s handed in”

“If not… you better hope I dont find you.”

“You picked the wrong kid’s phone”.

I did that for oh…

A few hours.

I went back and forth between mom on a revenge mission with Liam as my sidekick, and kindergarten teacher snuggling on a cafeteria floor with my students praying my compromised immune system would hold up as I gulped down my dinner juice.

Even one of the troll characters had a little Liam in her, but she didn’t give up in a good way, not the scary, “I will hunt you down” mode that I was in.

I discovered there is also some drop box at wal mart now where people can drop phones into a kiosk and get $50 immediately, so we called that company and have them checking cameras that snaps pictures of people dropping off phones if the phone ends up there.

Great idea, Wal Mart.

We had a big discussion with my daughter about telling the teachers immediately if something goes missing and being more mindful of her belongings. She felt horrible, and then went to bed.

I’ve got other parents telling their kids to spread the word that the phone better show up. I’ve also got them checking social media that kids use like Snapchat, instagram etc.

I’ve been told to have kids keep an eye out for any accounts that may pop up in her name. (She doesn’t have any, so we will trace those should they pop up.)

Freaking kids.

I checked the phone through the night,

then realized…

It was time for Liam Neeson to go back to Belfast.

The zen creeped in.

I remembered about my BFF, Jesus.

I breathed.

My daughter is off for the day already, headed to another invitational track meet in the Bronx.

Before she left, I hugged her and told her it’s a new day. I also told her that I realized how lucky I was.

Lucky that she is the one whose phone was stolen, instead of the one who steals phones.

Lucky that I spent the night looking for simply a lost phone, instead of being a mom up all night looking for a phone because her daughter was also missing along with the phone.

Today we don’t let the bad thing dim the light, we shine brighter.

Give more love.

Even if sometimes it kicks the crap out of you.

It took me a while, but I found my blessings.

She asked why God let that happen after everything we’ve been through. I explained it’s because not everyone listens to Him, and God was actually with us. He gave us all of the family members who are police officers. He gave us the kind teacher who stayed for over an hour to help us.

He gave us the security team that talked her through it.

We’ve been through much worse, and just because cancer came, we don’t get an immunity to other things happening.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

“Sorry you’ve got cancer, but here’s the immunity idol!”

Instead, we learn and get strength to get through it, and sometimes Liam Neeson comes along for the ride as well.

My daughter had sent out a text to invite all the Dungeons and Dragons kids over this weekend, and now we don’t have a phone for responses. So today, I will clean up and prepare for possibly twenty teens to show up tomorrow afternoon.

Moms, don’t worry.

Liam Neeson will not be in the building.

Today, may we all do our best to keep breathing and stay in the zen zone when faced with issues, and if Liam shows up when trouble comes, be kind.

He will go away when you remember to breathe.

Maybe the Liam from “Love Actually” will show up instead.

In Jesus’s name, amen.

Xoxo

Keri