Because my dad lived right down the Street from my brother in Oklahoma when he passed away my brother took a bunch if my dads things to his home. We all thought they would be safe and taken care of.

None of us thought my brother’s house would get broken into and everything would be taken. If you’ve never been roobed you might not relize when someone breaks into a house, the first thing people usually think about is what was stolen.

This is what we did when David noticed the shed door was open and we could tell there was nothing inside it. The television and his computer was here but there were other electronics missing.

The tools and tools benches and tool chest. The money ie change Gerald had all over his house. Then there was the things that have a dollar value including papers Gerald needed and photos.

When the people who broke into my brother’s home in Oklahoma, stole everything they didn’t just take things they took pieces of our family history. And that’s something you can’t put a price on.

They took my dad’s bike. I could walk into Walmart tomorrow and buy another bike and I could probably find one that looks almost exactly like it. But it wouldn’t be my dad’s bike and that’s the difference and it’s what hurts the most.

You can replace an object but you can’t replace the person who use it. They also took some of my mom’s dishes. These weren’t just dishes sitting in a cabinet. They were her China from when she got married. She bought them from Piggly Wiggly.

How do you replace that? You can’t. I could search eBay. I could look through antique stores. I could spend hours online trying to find the exact same pattern. And even if I found it, it still wouldn’t be the dishes my mom’s parents bought when she was beginning her life with my dad.

That history is gone. They also took tools. A lot of tools. Some belonged to my brother. Some belonged to my dad. Some of them might have even been my gradnfather’s tools from the Farm.

And honestly, we don’t even know whose was whose anymore. That’s one of the strange things about losing a house full of belongings this way. You don’t always have an inventory. Which is sad.

You don’t have a photograph of every drawer and you don’t remember every tool hanging on every pegboard. You don’t remember every box in the closet and you don’t remember everything that was tucked away in a cabinet.

So there are things we may never even realize are missing. And that’s one of the hardest parts. Because when someone steals from you, you’re not only dealing with what you know they took. You’re left wondering about everything you don’t know they took.

There was also some of my daughter’s things in that house. There were pictures of my nephew and there were pictures of my daughter. We found some things. But we didn’t find everything. And I don’t know if we ever will.

Then there’s the safe. Who knows what was inside?

Who knows what may have been stored there? Who knows what my brother hasn’t even remembered yet? Those are questions that may stay with us for the rest of our lives. And that’s what I wish people understood about breaking into someone’s home.

The loss isn’t always about the price tag. Sometimes the most valuable things are the things nobody else would ever understand. A bike. A dish. An old tool. A photograph that can’t be replaced.

Something your parents owned or something your child left behind. Or it could be something that has been in your family for decades. To someone else, it might just be an object. To you, it might be a memory.

And memories are not replaceable. So how do you deal with something like this? Honestly, I’m still figuring that out. I don’t think there is a perfect way to deal with it. You grieve what you know you’ve lost.

You wonder about what you don’t know you’ve lost. You try to remember. You look through pictures. You tell stories. You hold onto the things that were recovered. And eventually, you realize that the people and the memories connected to those things are still yours.

They can steal a bike. They can steal dishes. They can steal tools. They can steal photographs. But they cannot steal the years we had with our parents. They cannot steal the stories. They cannot erase the love.

And they cannot take away the memories that are still inside our hearts. That doesn’t make the loss hurt any less. But maybe that’s where we begin putting the pieces back together. Not by pretending the things didn’t matter. But by remembering why they mattered in the first place. **Some things can be replaced. Family history can’t.**

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Thank you,

Glenda, Charlie and David Cates