2 Hours In Hell

This post has been a long-time coming. I have alluded to the experience many times in other posts always saying "that's a post all on it's own" and finally, here I go. I actually meant to post this on June 21st, the one year anniversary of this eye opening experience, but it was Father's Day and my parent's 30th anniversary, so you know, priorities.

A year ago today Michael and I were enjoying our last day in Florence, Italy. We were sipping on granita, witnessing The David, and eating some of the best sandwiches and Pizza we had ever eaten in our lives.  The day even ended with a firework show, it was the stuff of fairy tales. You wouldn't know that just four days prior we had gone through one of our worst travel nightmares. 

        

            

                 

June 21, 2014

It was an early morning in Rome. We couldn't believe we'd already checked one of the eleven cities off or our "to-visit" list for our trip. We had really enjoyed Rome.  It was the only city that Michael and I experienced together for the first time, since Michael had already visited all of the other places we were going to be seeing. We loved the food, the history, and the cobblestone streets. Everything up to this point, minus a few itinerary switches, had gone as planned. We felt like we were finally getting into the groove of this whole traveling to foreign countries deal.

Maybe we were too comfortable. We let our guard down.  

I remember telling Michael before we left our apartment that it would be a better idea to put the camera bag back in his large backpack, but he had already packed it up, less compactly than when we had packed it at home, and was ready to get a move on. I said okay, and we both agree we'd need to hold onto it closely. 

We arrived at the train station early, so we decided to stop by a breakfast cafe and get some pastries. The pastries were delicious and there were no complaints. Everything was moving along. 

As we left the cafe we heard yelling. We slowed our walk so as to not bring attention to ourselves and proceeded to witness a fight break out in the middle of a cross walk.  We didn't have to know any Italian to understand what was going on. Someone was very mad and seemed to be accusing them of stealing or cutting them short. We kept our distance and as soon as the scene cleared up we looked at each other and said, 

"it's time to get out of this city..."

I think we both felt the sullen spirit of this particular part of town, but neither of us let it shake us. When we got to the train station we still had a couple of hours to kill.  We just sat for a while on a bench with all of our stuff piled around us.  I was especially wary of our exposed camera bag and made sure to keep it around my arm and by my side.  We reflected upon some of our favorite memories from the visit and started to plan the future escapades we would make in Florence.  After about an hour, Michael decided it would be a good idea to go get some sandwich supplies that we could take to make while on the train. He assured me I would fine waiting for 20 minutes while he went to a nearby grocery store. I was fine, but a little nervous. Without a phone to text or call I was apprehensive to be alone so long, and for him to be gone as well. What if something happened?

"What if something happened?"

I would be okay, I was in a public place, and more travelers began to gather and wait for the train. I was actually sitting, with all of our stuff on one of the few available benches.  After about 5 minutes I looked over to my right and saw a family of three sitting on their luggage.  It was a mom, dad, and a teenage daughter. I heard them speaking English, so I smiled and waved the girl over. I could tell they were telling her to come over and sit, and my acknowledgment assured them I was not an axe murderer, but just another tourist like them.  We chatted for about 15 minutes. I learned she was also going to the same cities in Italy that we would be seeing and that they had been in Rome just about as long as we had. I believe she was from Ohio. Really nice young lady with a sweet disposition. All of those sullen, nervous feelings were beginning to fade away.  Michael got back just as the train was pulling up. Perfect timing. I had survived our separation and made a new American friend. Everything was great....

We got our tickets out, picked up all of our bags and headed towards our train car.  We hopped on and found our seats, which were right by the car doors.  I pulled into our row and then looked at Michael in acknowledgment that he needed to help put our stuff up on the shelves above. We took a few seconds to ponder what would be the best arrangement for our two large bags, 1 small bag, a backpack, and of course, our loose camera bag. We thought, okay, let's put our big bags above us. We tried, but they were too large to fit above. At this point a nice looking old man arrived at his seat and saw our dilemma.  He proceeded to motion that we put our large bags behind us on a larger cart-type shelf right behind our two seats, which were at the end of the rows. We thought, yeah, that works, they'll be right behind us so we can see them. And then the old man put my semi-heavy small duffle bag just above my head, Michael's backpack next to it, and the camera bag next to the backpack....just behind our heads and seats, but above us. We motioned our gratitude, muttered a couple of "grazie's" and then sat down. We thought, "alright, here we go, on to another city." 

After about three minutes we were interrupted by a dirty looking old man who came up behind us. Michael was sitting in the aisle seat and I immediately felt my heart sink.  The old man had "fallen" and made it look as if he had dropped something in front of our seats. Some change or something. I thought, "oh dear, he's probably going to try and take Michael's wallet." I wasn't even thinking about our stuff above and behind us. I actually maintained some eye contact with the guy as Michael "looked" for the "stuff the man dropped."  But it wasn't until I looked across the aisle at the "nice looking man" who motioned for me to help my husband.  I bent over for maybe 1 second and that was the one second that changed our lives.  The dirty and nice old men remained for maybe 10 more seconds and the old man acted like he "gave up." We both looked at each other immediately and knew something was wrong. The "nice looking man" was there for maybe 10 seconds after the dirty old man left, but then he high tailed it out of there. That's when Michael stood up and said, 

"Mary, where's our stuff?"

My heart sunk again. I knew immediately what had happened. I had let my guard down, when I needed to have it up the most. I bolted out of my seat.

"They took our stuff, go, GO!"

Michael bolted off the train in a sprint in hopes of tracking down the thieves. It couldn't have been more than 4 minutes since they had taken our things.  I waited alone, with the rest of our stuff.  They had taken the camera and Michael's backpack. Luckily, there were no essentials in either of those bags...or so we thought. 

About 3 minutes passed before Michael came back. "It's gone. We've lost it," he said out of breath. 

There were a few other choice words as well. My husband doesn't swear. He's not a swearer, but he swore, and I was swearing too in my head. I think this was one of those situations where it's okay to swear. 

At this point some other people had taken notice of what had happened. There was a train station attendant on the platform who, luckily, spoke English and was trying to help us out and console us. We gathered all of our stuff, and held onto it for dear life. I stayed and told her what happened and Michael made one more run for it to see if he could spot the gang that had taken our stuff.

The train attendant brought me inside to their closed-door office and told me I could wait there until we sorted everything out.  They would help us catch a later train. Michael returned from his second run completely distraught. I don't think I have ever seen him in such distress. I knew I had to be the strong one. We had always complimented each other in this way.  When I was down, he was up, when he was down, I was up. 

Don't get me wrong, I was very upset and scared by the situation, but I was trying my best to maintain some composure.  Michael kept saying, "I just want to go home...I just want to go home." I said, "We can't do that. We will work this out. We are OK, we still have each other and all the good memories we made here, those thieves cannot take those away from us."

We sat for a minute in the office to calm down.  We started to mentally go through what was in the backpack, because we knew only the camera was in our camera bag....."razor, phone charger, extra "backup" camera, small digital video camera...okay, we can manage without those luxuries.....but wait, all of our Euro cash was in there, Michael's wallet...." And then I said, "were our passports in there?" 

We broke down again. 

We knew we could live without all of the technological luxuries, even the cash we could handle, but NOT OUR PASSPORTS. This opened up a whole other can of worms. Now we would have to get to the U.S. consulate in Florence before the end of the day or we'd really be in trouble.  Between freaking out and calming down we managed to get the wifi password to the station and connected our phones to the internet. SO grateful that our phones were not in either of those bags. I immediately got onto Facebook and told my friends what had just happened to us and to pray that a miracle take place. There was an outpouring of support from friends and family and it truly warmed my heart. It was not without result either.

Just a few minutes later Michael received what we thought was an odd email from the owner of the apartment we were going to be renting in Florence, it read, "they found your stuff! It's at Tiburtina station!" Michael rushed out to the lobby to tell the attendants and they called the station. We were both still very shaken and extremely cautious at this point, but Michael decided he would go retrieve our items and I would stay in the office with our other luggage. 

Thus began my two hours of hell. 

I was fine for the first 30 minutes.  I was distracted by answering the messages I'd received from family and friends on my Facebook page. I decided I needed to conserve my phone battery in case another emergency came up, and that's when I lost it.

Every single worst case scenario began to flow through my head.

What if Michael came into contact with the gang and tried to confront them. What if they beat him up, or worse, killed him and left him for dead in a ditch somewhere.....?

What would I do if that happened? How would I get home? Who would help me? Everyone who said this trip was a bad idea, would be RIGHT....I can't face that. They can't be right about that.

I continued to sit there in agony and imagined every grim scenario under the sun.  I imagined having to bring my husband's dead body home with me. Flying home alone knowing we had made the worst mistake of our lives.

I know this all seems melodramatic, almost funny to read, but in the moment, I was completely serious. It was completely possible. I had absolutely no way to contact him, besides email and iMessage, but he had no wifi where he was, so I literally could not contact him. Couldn't even check on him to see if he was okay. He could not check in with me. It was two hours of complete silence. 

Except it wasn't. I have never prayed harder in my entire life.  I was alone, in a foreign country, in a random train station office. Not a single person was with me in that room, so I prayed out loud. Tears streaming down my face. I pleaded with God that all I wanted back was my husband. That if He would send him back to me safe and sound that I would be at his mercy. I would do anything.

If it meant it was time to have a baby. I would do it. If it meant moving across the country, going back to school, being poor together, I would do any of it. I just wanted to see my husband again.

If Michael is gone, I will never have children with him. He is the only person I want to have children with. I cannot live without Michael. I cannot live with that idea....I cannot live....this must be what hell feels like.

I felt God. I felt His Spirit telling me that everything was going to work out. My prayer had not been said in vain. 

I waited for another hour in silence. I knew God would deliver Michael back to me, but it was so hard to be patient. Finally, the office door opened to reveal my beloved husband and a smiling train station attendant. Michael had his backpack in his hands and sat down next to me. I cried tears of joy. 

Michael explained to me that when he arrived at the other station the police officers could not speak any English. No one in the office could speak any English. So he tried French and said one officer could "sort of" understand so they could fill out a police report. He said it was like a circus, everything was disorganized and they were literally miming to each other to try and communicate. I guess they eventually figured it out and he was able to come back to me.

Much to our surprise, and no doubt because of the countless prayers offered on our behalf, our passports were left in the backpack. Whoever rummaged through it only wanted the electronics and cash, they even left Michael's wallet with all of our credit cards in it! It was truly a miracle.  

Turns out whoever found our bag, and bless the soul that turned it in, found the green organizational folder we had made for our trip with our itinerary and accommodation information.  It had addresses, names, and phone numbers of the people we were renting from.  I guess the police saw that there was an Italian phone number for a Florence address and they called him, thus causing him to email us that they had found our stuff! It pays to be organized, y'all!

We couldn't believe it. Everything. The fact that we'd been victims of thievery and the fact that we were so blessed to not have lost everything, especially our passports, credit cards, and our travel plans and itinerary. (Although, that was all backed up to our email, so we could have lived without it, too, but it was a nice bonus.)  We guarded our passports with our lives for the remainder of our trip, which we were still pretty much just beginning. 

We boarded our train for the second time that day, this time, much more wary of our surroundings. We were mentally and emotionally exhausted and very ready to be moving on from Rome.  We arrived in Florence about 4pm and thankfully, Michael was very familiar with Florence after having lived there for 3 months during college.  He knew exactly how to get to our apartment. One bonus from all of the hullabaloo of the day was we somehow ended up buying an Italian SIM card for Michael's phone, so when we arrived, we called the owner of the apartment for him to meet us there. 

While we waited for the owner and his wife to arrive we just sat on the sidewalk, totally exhausted from everything we'd just been through.  I started to cry as I recalled the experience I had individually lived that day. I told Michael how much he meant to me and how much I loved and cherished him. It's something I regularly do, but I had never meant it so much in my life. I told him how hard I prayed and how blessed I felt to feel and see my prayer being answered. I told him that I'd never realized more than I had that day that material things do not matter. Sure, I was sad all of our pictures from Rome were lost forever, but I would have been much more sad if I'd lost my husband. We both shed tears of relief and frustration. It was one of, actually probably the most trying day of our marriage, but it really helped put things into perspective. 

The relationships we have are much more important that the things.  I have to remember this. We all need to remember this. I wasn't even mad at this point. I was just completely determined for this experience to not ruin our trip. We both agreed, this would not ruin our trip. We would buy a new camera come Monday morning and keep on keeping on.  

As we pondered in hindsight, while we sat on the sidewalk, we thought about how amazingly blessed our lives were.  We didn't want to give those thieves another thought. They weren't worth it. I thought of the family I knew back home who had just lost their beloved daughter, and my childhood friend, to a horrible accident a week before.  I thought of the funeral that I was missing that day and how utterly awful and excruciatingly painful that experience must have been in comparison to what my husband and I had just been through. Our problems were nothing.  There were people suffering all over the world. Starving. Abused. Neglected. How could we be sad about a camera being stolen? How?

I admit. I have sadly given those thieves a few thoughts over the past year.  I've gone over the scenario several times, replaying it in my head, but always coming up with a way in which I would have stopped it from happening, but unfortunately, that's not the reality. This was meant to happen to us. We learned something from it, and I hope by sharing this experience, you have learned something too. Strangely enough, by writing about this I feel like I am writing the closing chapter to a book.  I feel the angst leaving my body and I like I'm finally able to let it go. As I said, this experience is nothing compared to the suffering and victimization others have gone through, but it was scarring enough to leave a lasting wound. It's something I would never wish upon anyone else. Learn from our experience and never let your guard down, but most importantly....

Hold your loved ones closer tonight. Tell them how much they mean to you and never let them forget it. Show them you care. Make amends with those you've wronged and forgive those who have wronged you.

To the thieves who stole our stuff, I forgive you.