Smith: A statement, in prose, by a former Santa Rosa police spokeswoman

Lisa Banayat’s name used to appear regularly in the PD. Through much of her tenure as a Santa Rosa police sergeant, she dealt with the press.

Banayat shares a poem she felt compelled to write now that she’s retired and no longer on the streets, but still bound to the officers who are.

I’m sorry you hate me just because I chose to be a cop,

I know you won’t see what I see -

People who are scared and reach out for help,

Human beings whose lives are exposed to strangers at the worst time.

Raw emotion, blood, and fear combined in chaos.

I have watched parents cry when their child was dead injected with heroin

And then a medic stuck their child with another needle and violently brought him back to life.

Those officers holding him down while he kicked and screamed,

Only to face the curse that is addiction - parents telling strangers their cycle of fear and relief.

I have watched those a-e officers cry

When they see a child dead because someone high drove with total disregard.

I have seen an officer dead because a crippled soul did not want to go back to prison.

And while my father lay dying, devastated by disease, I went to a call of a shooting.

A deputy shot a boy whose parents gave up on him and let him walk outside high with a gun

Along came a true angel, a hospice chaplain who comforted my father and gave him peace.

See what I saw - feel what I felt - and judge as you will.

Blessed are the peacekeepers. We are human too.

HHHHHH

NOT GEORGE’S QUILT: In Sebastopol, Nan Waters got a call from a volunteer at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.

The caller told Waters her late husband’s quilt has been in lost-and-found for months and if she didn’t come claim it soon it would be thrown out.

Quilt?

Waters knows her husband, George Breck, had no quilt when he went to Memorial by ambulance in April and died in the intensive care unit. She decided that rather than allow the quilt to be discarded, she’d pick it up and seek its rightful owner.

It features a border of green and gold and, within it, patches of floral and other patterns set in a blue and orange maze.

A tag that’s clipped to it lists George Breck’s name and the date and time of his death.

Waters says, “I have no idea how it got his name on it.”

She wonders who the quilt belongs to and she’d love to receive a note at nanwaters@hotmail.com from anyone who may know.

HHHHHH

NEAL DELIVERS: Rather than sleep, Three Twins ice cream founder and “Survivor” survivor Neal Gottlieb dreams up stuff like this:

National Ice Cream Day is Sunday. To celebrate, Neal offers to hand-deliver, almost anywhere in America, 100 pints of his organic ice cream. He’ll scoop for up to two hours, throw in a laser-etched scoop and a copy of his autobiography, and donate $333.33 to a land trust of the buyer’s choice.

The cost: $3,333.33. We’ll see if anyone bites.

If you may take up Neal’s offer, I have a question for you.

Please, can I be there? I’ll bring a trunkload of cones.

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.