Lesson learned. I had hoped the letter I submitted would be titled “Cops: Give ‘em What They Deserve” to speak to the peace of mind we can offer peace officers in our community that strive to do what’s right. They greatly benefit from our support. Unfortunately, I reached the word count in the submission guidelines and did not choose the title.  

I’m writing to clarify my intent as the title elicited inaccurate assumptions in a raw, tender, and polarized world. As human beings, we should encourage all who are doing what’s right. We are all affected and splintered by being misunderstood or wronged. Sadly, historically, wrongly, and currently, the pleas some voices make with their lives continues to be stifled through duct-taped lips of oppression, poverty, and injustice.  

All of the problems aforementioned are too big for me to hold or heal, but I choose to use encouragement and kindness as the first aid to mankind’s traumatic, gaping wounds, casting up the burden of what crushes me to bear in trust to the Creator, who I have seen make mosaics out of messes.  

I love where I live, much in part to those of you who invest in this place what you want to get out of it. When I’ve fallen, you dropped to the dirt with me. When I could stand, many of you were the ones to lift me up. Thank you for showing me kindness. It does not go unnoticed and I hope it returns manifold to you, our community, and is a gravitational force to hold all of these pieces of our broken world together.

— Rebecca Carlson, Fraser