I thought using this picture with Dash’s bloody/fat lip was fitting for my following story.
Really, it is just recounting a nightmare I lived today.
Pippi was asleep, and Dash, Navy and I were in the Family Night Room. I kept thinking it would be a good time to run at the harbor, so finally got up to go. Dash told me he was tired and he didn’t want to go, so I put on Monsters Inc. (his favorite movie right now) and told him to watch it. Foolishly (and for the first time ever) I called out to my mom I was leaving Dash and Pippi. Then Navy and I left.
We timed the run — 22 minutes.
When we returned, the front door was open and I could see Nonnie eating at the table. I immediately told Navy to run and ask where Dash was as I called out for him. She said she hadn’t seen him all morning and thought he was with us. (I had ALWAYS walked in to tell her every detail of when I am gone, but this time I stupidly only called out to make her aware.)
I told Navy to search the house, but I knew he wasn’t in there.
I ran around our cul-de-sac calling out his name. He is intrigued by the neighbor’s dog, and sometimes checks him out through the front door’s glass.
As I ran and didn’t find him, I started running out of our street.
An old Colombian lady came around the corner. I asked if she had seen a two year old boy in red pajamas?
She had and pointed me away from the cul-de-sac.
I ran, and when I got to the end of the street, I yelled back, “WHERE!”
She pointed me towards the school, and I sprinted.
(I was barely gone — how could he be nowhere in sight?)
I ran into Angi’s house and screamed, “Do you guys have Dash?”
When she told me they didn’t, I ran back to the street.
(She and Jon soon followed.)
I ran and ran.
I went into the school, and saw the Colombian lady there again.
I yelled to her, “Where? Where did you see him?!”
She pointed me in the direction past the school.
I was calling out for anyone who had a phone, because I needed to call 911.
The Colombian lady told me “I knew she was a bad lady. She was pulling him, and her eyes were down and he was trying to get away from her.”
I ran my fastest, flagged down a truck and asked him to help me find my boy — and that someone had taken him.
(No phone??? Who in the world doesn’t have a phone now days? I needed to call 911!)
He drove me around as I screamed out the window.
There wasn’t a soul on the streets.
(He is in one of these houses, and I don’t have a clue which one!)
I screamed and screamed.
When he turned the corner to a park I have taken my kids to, I got out.
There was a man stretching and I asked if he had seen my 2 year old little boy.
He said he’d been there 10 minutes and that he hadn’t, but to look up the road.
I ran while screaming.
And then fell to my knees in huge sobs as I saw a police car.
I knew he had to be there.
As I ran another 15 feet, I saw two little feet in red pajamas sticking out.
I bent over and cried and cried.
When I finally could, I walked over to him and held him as I cried some more.
I asked him where he had been, and why he left the house.
Then he looked at me and asked, “I go home to play the blue IPad now?”
(Obviously you don’t understand what you just put me through.)
Angi showed up on a bike a few minutes later.
Other neighbors showed up.
The lady who had him was as opposite from the description as possible.
She had found him a few houses down from our house and he was trying to take his pajamas off. She stopped to ask where his mom was, and we realized in hindsight that he was saying”harbor”. So she took him by the hand to get him back to me and he led her out the gates, and about 1/4 mile away from our house. All in the direction of the harbor.
The policeman was really nice and left us after a few minutes.
The lady who had him was beyond kind, and said he was happy and talking to her the whole time.
Soon after, Micah came driving home because he got a frantic call from Nonnie.
But he came home to a mother with a death grip on her boy, a 1/4 mile from home.
All was well.
When we finally got home, the Columbian lady came back by. She had been searching that whole time. She was scared to death. She recounted what she had seen, and knew the lady probably turned good when someone saw her trying to take him. We are all pretty sure she saw a mother with a tantruming kid at the school — because she had seen this at the school, which is not anywhere near where Dash and the lady were.
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Talk about a nightmare in real life.
I think I am actually scarred.
Dash and the rest of us took a box of candy over to what turned out to be another neighbor — who had walked with Dash part way to the harbor this morning.
When she came to the door, he reached out and said, “Thank you for saving my life and keeping me safe!”
And the rest of us all said the same.
And on the box, I wrote, “Thank you for being good.”
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I am pretty convinced that most people are good.
But this day, I was so blessed and happy that one of those “good” people found our little boy.
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