Every parent's fear

I need to talk about something that happened today because it REALLY touched on one of the fears I have as a parent. One fear EVERY parent has, really: When your child goes missing.

This did not happen to me. But it DID happen to my neighbor, Jimmy.

I spent a lot of time today on the Internet, looking for jobs, checking out job sites, checking out job assistant resources and job training programs and also going through ads both on and offline. My neighbor, Jimmy, showed up at around 4 p.m. asking if we had seen his 5-year-old daughter.

Suddenly, red flags went up as I told him we hadn't seen her all day. (My daughter plays with his daughter almost every day.) He said some things about how he was trying to find her and said as he was walking away that he was going to call the police.

I returned to my task, though this time not as gung-ho as I had been about it before. I was also chatting with people online (which my daughter occasionally joined in on), but I didn't say anything about it.

That was, until one of Jimmy's sons, Jeremy, came by. First he came by because he'd gotten locked out of the house and needed to use the phone, then he was asking about his dad and sister. I told him about how his dad had been here earlier asking about his sister and he got really nervous and then told me, by pen and paper, that it was his DAD who was supposed to pick his sister up from school and that if Jimmy had been here at the time I told him he was, something was "VERY wrong."

When he left, I saw him run to his mother, who was in her truck at the corner, then he jumped into the bed of the truck and it took off down the street.

I started getting nervous now. Actually, I got really scared and I started praying that little girl was okay. I told one of my sisters about it (she's one of the people I was chatting with) and I just couldn't be much talkative after that. I started moving around the house, trying to keep myself distracted with little manual tasks, but I kept going back to the living room window to keep an eye out for either her or any of them. My daughter wanted to go outside to play but I wouldn't let her outside. I don't let her play outside when it is dark but I REALLY was more concerned about some kidnapper going around, snatching kids. I would not let her go out at all, even to stand on the front porch. I just had to keep her close by.

Finally, about 25 minutes later, Jeremy came back and said, "We found her."

"Oh, thank God!" I said, a wave of relief flowing over me. "Is she okay?"

He nodded and tried to explain what had hapened but I couldn't understand him very well.

I asked if his mother was okay. He said, "No." His mother was distraught, just hysterical. She was crying and just going nuts.

I tried to find out more but all I really needed to know was that she was okay and on her way home. He seemed anxious to get back to his mom so I sent him on home and told him I'd come by later.

I felt horrible for that poor woman. I didn't know what to do to help her. Finally, I went over there and hugged her. I stood next to her as she waited for her husband to get home with their daughter then I noticed Jeremy waving to me from inside the house. I went inside and he told me about what had happened. (For the family's privacy, that part will not be revealed here. But the little girl is okay and safely back home.)

I'm so glad this story had a happy ending, but I know that, for a lot of parents, there was no child found. There was no child returned home. There was no grateful, tearful reunion between parent and child.

My own child is a hider, which of course isn't always a great thing. There have been many times I would not be able to find her and I'd run around, frantically calling out her name until I'd remember she hides and to check common places she hides at. There was also the time in Lake Arrowhead she had wandered off into the woods with her cousins, unbeknownst to me, and I freaked out because I didn't know where she was and I went nuts trying to find her.

Recently, we were at this park. While she played on this swing, there were two dirty, misdressed men who kept hovering around her. At one point, the two of them, plus their big dog, started circling her and talking to her while she stood near the slide. I panicked, of course. I grabbed her and got her out of there. Who knows if they had the intention of snatching her or not. But I didn't want to take that chance.

I would NEVER take that chance.

A child's life and safety is just too precious to take ANY chances with...