03/24/2021
Dear Mrs. Talley
Officer Eric Talley
EOW 3.22.21 💙
Dear Mrs. Eric Talley, we haven't met yet. I'm certain one day we will. And I am sorry for that. I am sorry because the rest of us all pray that no one else ever joins our line of duty widow "club."
I know right now you're very busy. You're planning funerals and learning about honor guards and liaisons and social security benefits. You're absolutely inundated with people in your home. Thin blue line themed gifts are pouring in and suddenly people you haven't heard from in 20 years are reaching out to you.
The media is knocking on your door and the president is quoting your husband's name and using his death as a political opportunity to push forward gun control legislation.
And I know, from the depths of my soul, that you are stunned and crushed and hoping that someone will kindly come and tell you that all of this is just a terrible nightmare and that you can wake up now.
If you have space to cry and grieve this week, it will be in the shower and in the dark hours of the night in your now vastly gaping bed.
Dear Mrs. Talley, I am so so sorry. All of us are. Your Colorado line of duty widows are all heartbroken with and for you. We're only a few heartbeats away from you and your children. We know, almost better than anyone, the knock at your door. How your world will be forever changed. How you can't imagine how everything has come tumbling down in the space of a single breath.
We're just a few steps away. When you are ready. We'll wear our hair in messy buns and put on our late husband's sweats and we'll come with coffee or wine or chocolate. And we will sit with you. And we will listen. And we will cry with you. And we will walk out this dark road with you. Our lamps of hope will light the way. You and your children are not alone.
Love, Mrs. Micah Flick and your new forever friends, the Colorado thin blue line widows.