o/' I lost my heart / in Port Alberni ... o/'

(This is layered and self-referential.  Sorry.)

I get all the weird shifts for Community Policing.  Well, to be more accurate (but less amusing), since we  are volunteers, and sign up for whatever shifts we choose, I *choose* all the weird shifts for Community Policing.  And one of them was manning (OK, "personning") the Community Policing table at the Overdose Awareness Day event.  (Believe me, we are aware of it.  We instigate a lot of wellness checks on a particular population in town.)  They had the project to paint hearts, and we painted some.  I painted two.  And, about a week and a half later, they got "installed" on a fence at Dry Creek Park.

Both of mine made the cut.  I am not exactly an artist.  My contributions aren't great.  But I figured that *one* had *some* kind of artistic merit, if only due to the cryptic layers of meaning that ended up in it.  (Believe me, I *didn't* plan it all that much, and I probably *couldn't* have executed parts of it if I *had* planned it.)  The only speaker at the event who had something to say was talking about using your grief to create something meaningful, and *that* definitely resonated with me.  (And the following day was grief awareness day.)  So, of course, part of mine was about Gloria and grief.  One of the grief "industry" tropes or memes is about how grief doesn't actually shrink: your life grows around it.  So I had concentric heart figures in the design.  And part of what I am trying to "create" is with the volunteer work, and Community Policing is part of that, and Community Policing was why I was at this particular event, so I used the RCMP colours in the design.  And then I goofed, but that left a blue smudge right at the centre of it all, and blue tends to represent sadness, so I thought that fit, and didn't try to fix it.

(Yeah, OK, TMI.  Who cares.)

So, today, having done two other volunteer tasks, I was passing, and idly wondered if they had varnished the hearts before "installing" them, or if the poster paints were just going to wash off, and went over to check.  I didn't end up checking, because I noticed a change:

Find the difference between these two pictures, and win a prize!  (No, not really.)

Yup, mine's gone.  (And at least one other as well.)

So, do I feel complemented that someone felt that my heart was worth stealing?  (Even though it was probably chosen more for firewood value, or ease of removal, than for artistic merit?)  Do I revel in the fact that it was *my* contribution that was chosen as an exemplar desecration of a monument to grief?  Or do I just chalk it up as one more loss in a life full of them?