The link tying together my two maternity leaves: Without a Trace.
Love that show. I remember last time, I'd always do a pumping session at 1:00 to coincide with a Without a Trace rerun on TNT. This time, thank heavens for DVR because there is no way I could plan my day around it. I have it on auto-record, so I get 3 episodes a day, and I watch every single one (and thank goodness for the "pause" function). The good news is that, though I saw most of them 2 1/2 years ago, it was so long ago that I never remember the ending. It's always new to me.
Stay with me.
Friday, I enjoyed a nice outing at the Mall of Georgia with Ali and Abby J., babies in tow. We're standing there by the food court trying to decide where to sit down to feed babies when this kid about 8 years old walks into my elbow - I'd had no idea he was behind me. He goes "owww!!!" and slaps his hand on his forehead as if I'd mortally wounded him. He was holding a package of erasers from The Children's Place and wearing this shirt that said "2 cool 4 school," and that was exactly how he was acting. We were like, "oh come on, kid, get over it."
As a little more time passed, though, we realized that he was actually quite autistic, and quite lost. He eventually got over the elbow collision and started high-fiving us and hugging us. Ali and Abby tried to get information out of him as to who he might be with. They're so much better at talking to children than I am (this is why they work with children for a living and I do not). Abby got out of him that his name was Aiden, and Ali realized that we could report him to Guest Services, which was about 20 feet away. Meanwhile, I was kinda standing around like I had no idea what to do with the kid.
As we started walking towards Guest Services, he started to hold my hand. My thought was: "I can't be seen holding this child's hand because I really don't want anyone to think I am trying to walk off with him." I gently let go as we continued to guide him along.
Enter way too much Without a Trace watching. If I learned nothing else on that show, it is that no detail is too small. While Abby and Ali did what they do best, I started theorizing. The package of erasers wasn't in a bag, so it almost looked like he had picked them up and walked out of the store with them. I left the gang and walked about 5 stores down to The Children's Place to see if there appeared to be anyone looking for a child. I studied everyone to see if there was any indication in their faces that something was wrong. Nothing, so I told the cashier what was going on and to direct anyone who might come in looking for a lost child to Guest Services.
Based on the child's appearance, I thought I was looking for someone Hispanic, but not necessarily full-blooded. When I went into The Children's Place, I did see this woman with a lot of curly blond hair and a boy about the same age as Aiden, kind of similar in appearance. Everything else seemed normal with her, though, and she didn't look anything like what I thought I was looking for.
I headed back to Guest Services, and as I was leaving, I saw that lady and her son walking back into The Children's Place. I do this all the time - leave a store and realize I want to go back in and look again, so I didn't think it necessarily meant anything. I kept walking for a few seconds, but something nagged me to go back, just in case. I did, and when I got in there, she appeared frantic and was yelling Aiden's name. I flagged her down and pointed her to Guest Services, and she proceeded to sprint over there to get her other son.
Being a mom, it brought tears to my eyes. It seems like any situation like that, whether it's real on the news, fictional on television, or right in front of me, just makes me envision it happening to me - as if I was the mom and Liam was the boy she had been - thank heavens - reunited with. I could see all the horrible possibilities flashing before my eyes. Regardless of how long the separation is, it must feel like life is starting all over again considering all the other directions the situation could have gone.
Being a mom, I also immediately rushed to judgment. I thought, "my kid is not autistic. Granted, he is 2, but I am holding his hand every moment that we are in a place where he could wander off. I would NEVER let him out of my sight." It also seemed like a long time between the time that he probably wandered off and the time that I saw her register any kind of realization that he was gone.
I reconsidered, though, and realized that it's probably just not a situation that I am in any position to judge. I don't know what it's like to have an autistic child. I know that even with two children who are, to date, unaffected and will prayerfully remain so, there are insanely difficult moments where I think "you have to be in my situation to understand." She had another son who also needed her attention - one who probably often feels a little slighted when it comes to mom's attention.
Hopefully that situation will be a learning experience for that mom. Someone could have so easily snatched him up, and our mini-episode of Without a Trace could have turned into the next big Nancy Grace drama.
It felt good to be a part of that. I'm glad that God put the three of us (and my elbow) there at that particular moment in time - that we hadn't sat down in the food court, and that we had taken a few moments too long to decide where we were going to sit down to give Cooper and Macy their bottles. I'm glad that all of our college degrees came in handy in their own ways at the time!
I'm glad that Without a Trace is fiction, and I wish that, with so many possible outcomes, no mom ever had to experience a missing child.
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