She treasures her father despite his character faults.
—
It was no secret growing up what my father did for a living. Obvious to all if they drove past my house at 10:15am, 12:30pm, and 2:00pm when my dad came home for his breaks. There was no mistaking the red and blue light bar across the top of his navy blue and white emblemed, caged and handle-less back-seated police car.
My father was a cop.
As a child, life wasn’t all peaches and cream. The stress of my father’s job needed an outlet for release, and he found his reprieve in booze and his Playboy-themed Barbie-like common law wife. He was a good man with a big heart, but he was able to separate emotion from fact with ease when necessary. A great skill to have as a police officer when personal bias can be the difference between life and death. My dad got caught up in the heroics of being such a great family provider and the need to unwind in the little time he have himself away from the job, he forgot to be a great family man and husband.
The older we got, the more distant he was and the more of a stranger he became. My father is, still, to this day a functioning alcoholic.
◊♦◊
Being a police officer is so much harder than civilians could ever imagine. The news media is a biased portrayal carefully constructed to evoke a strong reaction, therefore continuing to boost ratings and line pockets. Sure, there are certainly bad cops out there. And teachers, and lawyers, and businessmen, and customer service agents, and even doctors, too. It takes a very special person to do the kind of job which is public service and it isn’t an easy process to screen for, especially when humans have the ability to change in nature in the matter of an instant.
You can never know someone’s true colors completely, never know what is working, or not, inside their mind in the short amount of time a police department has to evaluate potential candidates. You never know when mental illness is going to crop up after the initial hiring phase of psychological testing. Unless they screen each officer before the start of every shift, one can never prevent the rare bad apple from rearing its ugly face from time to time. Those bad apples shouldn’t define the entire orchard as rotten, though.
Bad seeds aren’t contagious, after all. Just a glitch in DNA.
Though I could never take on the job of police officer myself, and if my own life had allowed me the option, I still hold my dad on a pedestal for doing just that. It takes a level of strength and courage to get up and face the unknown spewing from the depths of hell every passing day without going insane or succumbing to the weight of the responsibility. My father’s own life isn’t worth to him as much as the lives are of the innocent, naive, unassuming citizens he dedicated and sacrificed his entire life to protecting.
Three wives, two distant adult children, alcoholism, PTSD, chronic pain, estranged family members, and lost chances for family memories are the price he has paid for serving and protecting his neighbors, their families, and their businesses selflessly for thirty-seven years. And counting…. because though he had to retire from the force, he stayed on as a court officer. He couldn’t stop serving and protecting, even after all his time doing so already. It’s in his blood, just like all the other genuinely good police officers out there today.
My father is my hero, regardless of how failed our relationship is.
I hope the next time you feel the need to jump on the cop-hating band wagon you remember this piece right here. They are only human. They are somebody’s father or mother. They are facing evils you could never dream about in your worst nightmares. They are unsung heroes in uniform trying to live to see another day.
And one bad seed doesn’t sour an entire orchard.
—
This essay originally appeared on Angrivated Mom and is republished on Medium.
Read Kristina Hammer’s column every week here on The Good Men Project!
***
Improve your writing, expand your reach, and monetize your craft.
Join The Good Men Project’s Writers’ Community on Patreon.
We welcome all experience levels.
Learn more on our Patreon page.
***
Photo credit: Shutterstock
I would have to disagree with you when you look at the history of policing in America where police departments have been used by corporations and rich people to keep minorities and the labor force under control and now you have cities, counties, and even states trying to criminalizes political, social, and economic peace protests since 9/11 and the destruction of the Occupied Wall Street movement in a well-coordinated nationwide attack by the police plus doing illegal police spying on the public
Very nice article but I would like to ask you a question. How do you feel about all the negative publicity law enforcement get all the time? Knowing the struggles your dad went through as an officer, how do cope with the publicity?
It isn’t easy. I cringe when I hear the hatred. I also know that those aren’t my father’s character nor our community being called into question and causing the spew of hatred. I have seen both sides of the law, however, so I guess I let most of the crap roll off my back because I take into consideration someone else’s point of view is not the only one there is and there’s always a bit of truth sprinkled in for good measure. We just live in a world of surface value these days and there’s not much any of… Read more »
Thank you Kristina. Although I don’t personally have law enforcement in my family, I am friends with people who do and are. I have a “thin blue line” on my truck so as to show my support. What I really liked about what you wrote is that you showed your dad in an admirable way while at the same time showed his vulnerability as a human being. Being an officer isn’t just a job but instead it’s a life that follows them 24/7. One thing is for sure, your dad did a lot of things right, you’re a daughter he… Read more »
The rest of society is human too and they have family members as well like the cops; however, many cops seems to forget that. “And one bad seed doesn’t sour an entire orchard.” Well,the entire orchard can be sour when you look at how the Ferguson police in Missouri were citing Afro-Americans left and right in order to raise money for the city budget and the cops got support from City Hall, the district attorney, and the court system in doing this stuff. In addition, doctors, nurses, firemen, EMT, and child social workers also see the evils that most of… Read more »
The entire department of Ferguson is one seed in an orchard of police departments across our nation. Your analysis would be like saying Detroit, MI is the epitome of small-town America.