❤️The Autopsy

My car was broken into again. That’s two times in ten days. No smashed windows, no alarm—just the quiet violation of someone rummaging through my things while the world slept.

The first time, they left everything in disarray but didn’t take anything—probably because there wasn’t anything of value to take. This time, they upped the ante. Drained the battery somehow, so I had to call for a tow. And this time, they left me a gift: a pile of break-in tools, a handful of keys, and a burnt glass pipe—clear evidence of drug use.

One of the keys belongs to a mailbox right here on the property.

Now, maybe that mailbox key belonged to another victim—someone who, like me, was just unlucky. But another thought lingers in the back of my mind: Have I found the perpetrator? Did they break into my car… and unknowingly leave behind a trail that leads right back to them?

I filed a police report, more for the paper trail than out of any expectation. I’ve played this game before. The complex says there’s security at night, but I’ve yet to see a soul. Not even a flashlight beam in the dark.

And here’s the thing—this is the part that stings a little deeper: I want to believe these people are my neighbors. I want Nomad Santa to say that. But I’m struggling.

Part of me wants to shake them by the shoulders and shout, “Can’t you find something better to do with your life?” Another part of me thinks of all the scam calls, the phishing emails, the fake tech support lines targeting seniors (like me). There’s this rising tide of desperation masquerading as hustle.

“Get a job,” people say. But what if your mind is swimming in chemicals? What if your past has anchored you to the bottom? What if your “Sitz im Leben”—your place in life—is a storm-damaged raft drifting with no land in sight?

Homelessness. Addiction. Mental illness. It’s a mess we haven’t figured out yet. A wicked, tangled problem.

And I—Nomad Santa—sit here with a handful of someone else’s keys, wondering what door they no longer open.

I’m angry. But I’m also sad. And maybe a little tired.

But I’m not giving up. Not on my neighbors. Not yet.

This is Nomad Santa, reminding you: In this small world, we’re all neighbors.

A Nomad Santa Reflection

Years ago, during clinical training, I was A hospital chaplain for years, I was invited to observe an autopsy.
It was quiet in the room — cold, sterile, respectful. The kind of silence that carries weight.
The pathologist worked methodically. I was the only observer that day, but he still narrated the procedure, speaking as though to a group — maybe out of habit, maybe out of ritual. A group of one.
When he opened the chest cavity and exposed the lungs, he paused and pointed.
“You see these black spots?” he asked.
“Smoking,” I said.
“Right,” he nodded. “That’s what a couple of decades will do.”
Then he pointed again — this time to another set of blemishes. Brown, not black.
“And these?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
He gave a half-smile. “That’s thirty years of breathing Phoenix air.”
And in that moment, I remembered something David Letterman once said:
“I don’t trust air I can’t see.”
It was meant as a joke, but standing in that room, it didn’t feel so far off.
We think of what we do to our bodies — the choices, the habits. But sometimes it’s what’s done to us by the world around us. The air we breathe. The places we live. The invisible things we take in without noticing until much later.
That day, I walked out of the lab with something more than clinical knowledge. I walked out with a deeper awareness of what it means to live — and what we leave behind in the lungs of our stories.
It’s a small world—and we’re all neighbors. Even down to the air we share.