http://www.oakpark.com/Community/Blogs/04-07-2004/OP
-lost_nothing_-_ robbed:

What We’ve Lost Is Nothing

Candy Kane, blogger

I can’t sleep. Perhaps many of you cannot, either. If I’m honest, I don’t know whether it’s sympathy for the Ilios Lane families who lost so much, or if it’s fear that I’m next. That my friends or family are next. How terrified we are of their tragedy (“But by the grace of God,” we say, though who’s to say a couple of them didn’t have the grace of God?).

We say they’re lucky, don’t we—especially the daughter home alone. No one was injured. It was only “stuff” those families lost. But I don’t think that’s true. Our homes are the haven of a heartless world, are they not? The place we are most ourselves. What happens when some uninvited person invites himself in?

Yes, I said him. I cannot imagine a woman committing such a crime. Maybe this is small of me. Guess it’s kinda sexist—and here, in this diverse community, we like to believe we have moved past all that. But have we? I’m awake here, at nearly midnight, and I’m just really wondering.

Who were these thieves? What desperation, what desire, led them to such an act? How many thieves were there? Did they go to each house together, or have a ratio of thieves-to-households? One thief to two law-abiders? Were they after the stuff or the big giant story of it all? Did they target our community because of who we are? Because of what we believe? Worst of all to me to think . . . are the thieves now watching the local news, seeing their victims all upset and everything, and . . . laughing?

Even the stoic Ilios Lane resident from the news tonight—I can’t remember his name (Mark? Michael? something like that . . . )—even he might recognize, in time, that what he’s lost is actually quite something.