Grower

Today, I met with the Hennepin County Sheriff and State Farm to put an end to all the drama surrounding my cameras being stolen. After eleven months, it feels so good to have some kind of closure. For a long time, I was constantly reminded of that Memorial Day weekend and I could never find a way to not be sad about it. When I was cleaning out my car almost a month ago to finally sell it, I had to vacuum up the glass that had been broken out. Something about the vacuum running and all the glass reminded me of driving home that night to an empty house with no power. If you've ever driven on the highway in the middle of the night with all the windows down and no radio, it almost seems deafening.

When the cart was wheeled into the room with my old camera bag on it, it was like all those memories faded and I couldn't even remember why I was sad anymore. It was explained to me that my cameras were likely bartered for drugs. That was actually how they were found. The house that they were found in had been raided in an effort to take down one of Minneapolis' most prominent drug dealers. They were found in the attic, safe and sound.

The insurance adjuster didn't know how to handle the situation, because apparently this was the first time camera equipment had ever been recovered while he had been working in the insurance industry. He allowed me to buy back whatever I wanted at a 75% discount. There's something a bit sickening about buying your camera gear back, but I was so happy to be reunited with them that I really couldn't care less. Today, I am happy instead of feeling like there's an eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room reminding me all the time of that night.

They had found more that just my camera and all I could think about the other people that were going to be blessed with their camera gear again and wonder what those things meant to them. And I would think, "They won't have to despair any longer, they've been found."