THIS day last week I walked out my front door to take my son to school and my car wasn't there.
I came back in and checked my phone to see if my mum had perhaps left me a message that she had borrowed it. I phoned my mechanic to see if he had towed it by mistake. I logged on to Facebook and saw that people were sharing a status about a car matching mine that was burned out at the side of the road. So I called the police.
They were round in 20 minutes, telling me that there were sorry, that they had found my car, burnt to a mere shell outside a nearby school. Youths had stolen the keys from my kitchen, took my car for a joyride, rammed the gates of the school, and when they couldn't gain entry, set my car alight.
I asked the police was there anything saved from the car. They said everything was gone.
I had been planning to go to the university library that morning and get my end-of-year coursework finished. My bag with all my lecture notes, books and study notes I had worked on throughout the year was incinerated. There wasn't even any paint left on the car.
Over the next few days I dealt with police, with insurance companies, with wrecker's yards, with victim's support asking me how I was feeling, with journalists wanting me to speak about the spate of car crimes in our area, with my anxious children upset that someone had invaded their safe space and unable to sleep in case they came back to get them, with various banks trying to gather up enough money to get me back on the road.
The car was not a fancy one. It was my dad's old Ford Focus. I was given it after he died. It was eight years old, the wing mirror was held on by electrical tape, the radio was busted and there was a certain way the boot could be opened.
It once broke down on the Glenshane Pass on the way to the Titanic Ball and left me stranded at the roadside in a ball gown. It was at the mechanic's so often they were thinking of charging me rent.
But it took me to university, it took me to work all over Northern Ireland, it took my children to and from school and to their various clubs and it held items from our lives like an extension to our home. It was my lifeline, it allowed me to better my life through education, feed my children and work for a living. It wasn't a new BMW, it wasn't worth much in monetary terms, and I certainly won't get much back on insurance, but it meant a lot to me.
As a relatively poor mature student and a freelance journalist I'm not top of the bank's lists of ideal people to lend to. I have no savings and no rich relatives that will bail me out. If I don't get to work I don't get paid. Whoever heard of a reporter who lived their life in the bus lane?
A couple of well-meaning people said to me during the week that it was only a car. It was and it wasn't. It was a means to earn money, to keep a roof over our heads and help put myself through university to create a better life for my children. I don't suppose the people who broke into my home, wrecked my car and then torched it thought much about me or my family, though. They were too busy having a laugh and getting away with destroying other people's stuff.
There's a certain feeling you get when you know someone with ill intent has been in your house. It's a violation, an invasion. Our home is a haven for all of us. No matter what happens in the real world, when we come home and close that door nothing can touch us. The people who came into our home that night shattered that illusion.
I was told that the people who stole my car were 14 and 15 years old. I was given their names. I was told the police have their names. I was told by householders where my vehicle was found that my car sped past their windows at 5.30am.
As a mother, if my 14-year-old was still out at 6am I'd have some serious questions about what the hell they were doing. But then again, maybe that's just me. Because I take my parental responsibilities seriously. I teach my kids right from wrong. I teach them to respect other people's hard-earned property. They have empathy, they have feelings, they have a moral compass because I did my job properly.
The people who stole my car saw that my vehicle was a family one, with two child seats and a little Frozen schoolbag, and a small flowery raincoat and a painting my daughter did of a rainbow on the back seat and they stole it anyway.
I pity them, because their life must be pretty bad to do it and feel no remorse. They have already been hardened by life; what lays ahead for them is jail and a grim existence.
I'll be able to deal with my traumatised children. I'll change all the locks in the house and eventually I'll be able to sleep properly again. I'll wrangle with the insurance company for weeks and fill in their seemingly endless paperwork and I'll get back on the road again.
It was only a car.
