As most are aware, this past week has been an awful week in Dallas. As expected, when the funerals began, the reporting on the news begin to wear down a lot of people emotionally. Usually, one can hold up and make it through the ordeal. It's hard. It hurts. It lingers. But as you make it through one, then the second one begins and the third and fourth. Today the fifth funeral takes place in Ft. Worth with a mass for Officer Patrick Zamarripa, followed by his burial at the Dallas/Fort Worth National Cemetery on Mountain Creek Parkway. It's a beautiful cemetery placed on top of an escarpment overlooking Mountain Creek Lake where, Dallas and Grand Prairie meet on the southern belt of the LBJ Freeway.
Still, after Officer Zamarripa's burial today, Officer Kroll's funeral that was held yesterday at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, will not be buried until Tuesday when his Detroit family will hold a service with burial in his native Detroit (Southfield), Michigan. Being familiar with Southfield area and it's infamous Southfield Freeway that splits Ford Motor Company's Headquarters with Fairlane Town Center, a large mall on the former Ford Property that sits east of the estate on Fair Lane Drive. The estate for the Ford Family, named Fairlane, near Evergreen and Hubbard area is old Southfield, and the center of the universe known as Michigan 12 and Southfield Freeway. Ironically, Henry Ford Community College is in that same radii. The mile roads begin just north. Streets with names like Park Lane and Mercury Drive and Auto Club Drive, Lincoln Lane somehow just yell out FORD! The cemeteries up there are completely beautiful. They are like gardens very well cared for. So, to me, it is fitting that the very last internment from last week will be Officer Kroll's. Then, the burials will be over. The healing is yet another thing. Most certainly, it will take a life-time for many and healing will never come for more than we will ever know. I've been there. The pain does lessen over time, but it never goes away completely. Yes, it's hard. it does hurt and it will linger on for a lifetime.
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| Waited for an hour to see the procession come over the bridge ramp.The procession is that of Sergeant Michael Smith. |
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| The sight brought an emotionally filled moment. |
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| Then the sight of red, white and blue lights streaming in an endless line transferred to my arms as I held the camera, and with the shock mode still on, the blur is my emotional shaking from the sight. Over the years, I've seen a lot but never like this before this moment. |
