First Call to 911

Walter and I had another, and luckily rare, True Parent Moment. One where you realize you are no longer a kid and an adult and really responsible for another person’s life.

I arrived home to Walter starting to close the front gate and who reopened it for me so I could drive in to say he wasn’t sure where Padon was, that he hadn’t been gone more then 10 minutes, and could I help him find him. The front gate was ajar and Walter was pretty positive that Roadie had opened it because he hadn’t had the gate bungee corded closed. (Padon is allowed to play outside by himself but is supposed to stay in the yard). We checked the whole yard and rechecked the house and no Padon and no Roadie. So then we started calling Roadie, thinking well she’ll come and maybe she will help us find Padon, striving for some of her Border Collie genes to kick in. And at first she didn’t come and I could feel my chest getting tighter and tighter thinking, how can they both be gone, and then from the front of the house she appeared but in a way that seemed maybe she had still been in the yard. And we started saying all excited to get her pumped “Where’s Padon, Roadie?! Where’s Padon?!” Having played hide’n’seek this way in the past it seemed like a good idea but she wasn’t interested and wasn’t making any effort to point us in any direction, just jumped in the pond to have a drink of water. Walter then handed Sophia off to me and jumped in the car to start driving around our neighborhood. We had already checked over at two of our neighbor’s houses to see if Padon was over there and if they had seen him, which they hadn’t, and so I got on the phone to call them again and our other neighbors to say have you seen Padon? No one had and resources tapped I made the call to 911.
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All I could think was did someone see this cute little tow headed boy running around by himself, open the gate and take him, because people do crap like that? And if not, could he tell someone where he lived and would he be outgoing enough to say my Dad is Walter and my Mommy’s Chloe (he does know our names). And I felt like such an idiot when the gal on the phone asked me what he was wearing and I didn’t know because I had just gotten home and don’t see him when he gets up in the morning. She was so nice to me though and just asked me to call her back when I had asked my husband and logged the ticket to the Sheriffs department. The coolest thing was, even though we are so rural, in 5 minutes the three neighbors I had called were in their cars driving around the neighborhood looking for Padon and a police officer was at our door. That was the absolutely coolest thing – I had wondered since we had moved to Stanwood, were anything to happen to us how fast would emergency services come to us; well the answer to that is pretty freak’n fast! And our neighbor across the street found Padon two doors down in the woods on the other side of our neighbor’s property. He was driving by and heard Padon crying. I was on the phone with 911 when our other neighbor brought him in relieved to see me and all of us with our hearts in our throats. I called Walter who was still frantically searching for Padon and he came right home. Even though I had told the gal over the phone that Padon had been found a police officer was still outside our house and I made Padon talk to him. He wanted to hide behind me and be shy, but I made it a point to tell him that the police officer was there because we were scared that we couldn’t find him and he needed to say thank you to the officer and our neighbors. The officer was so nice and asked Padon for a high five and spoke so kindly to him; he really didn’t want Padon to be afraid.

So the story goes that Roadie let herself out of the gate and Padon followed her. She went down the road and into the wooded yard two houses down. When we called her it took her a bit because she had to traverse back out of the yard, back up the street and into our yard. Except that when she came back she left Padon behind. That was as much as we were able to get out of Padon other then he will never leave the yard alone again! I’m not sure why he couldn’t find his way back himself, except I think maybe he realized suddenly how alone he was and I think he was really relieved to see and hear Rick’s truck which is very big and loud.

I told Walter I thought it was a ploy by Roadie to get this face smacking, body smashing, ear pulling, and attention hogging kid out of her house. That it was like “here kiddy, kiddy, kiddy, wanna go play in the woods? You don’t have any bread crumbs do you?” and then she ditched him to be lost forever, wahahahahah!

After this whole adventure I told some friends at work and the more I thought about it the more I realized that we all disappeared on our parents at one point:

1. Patrick at 3 decided he would go to Andy and Megan's house on his big wheels, after my Mom tried to explain to him that we couldn't go and visit them (they lived in Oregon). Patrick got as far as Richmond Beach Rd, about 8 blocks (?), before he ran into a Police Officer who stopped him. The Police Officer then proceeded to walk a mad Pat back the way he had come with the big wheels in tow. My poor Dad came driving home in time to see this Police Officer walking his son down the street and when he stopped to see what was going on the Police Officer gave my Dad a piece of his mind and a lecture on parenting. Needless to say Patrick lost the use of his Big Wheels for a very long time.
2. When Sarah and I were about 7 and 8 we asked Grandma Dempsey if we could go to the park, totally saying clearly that WE were going to the park. Grandma said "sure" totally saying clearly that SHE, my UNCLE STEVEN, SARAH, and I would go to the park. So imagine her surprise after she had packed a picnic lunch that she couldn't find us anywhere and after searching frantically with my Uncle came to the conclusion that we must have gone on our own (about a mile away down a busy suburban road on Long Island?). I still have guilt over the fact that by the time she had figured out that we must be at the park Sarah and I had pretty much played to our hearts content and were on our way back across the park to start on our way back to my Grandmother's house. Sarah beat me to the swings which is where she ran into my Grandmother who gave her a spanking in that "I'm going to kill you! I'm so glad to see you!" way. By the time I got there my Grandmother was too emotionally exhausted to continue on the spanking to me, and just yelled at us to get in the car.
3. When we moved from New York to Seattle the mortgage company wasn't ready for us to move into our new home in Shoreline and IBM put us up in a sky scraper of an apartment building in downtown Seattle. One day as we were going up the elevator to our apartment the doors opened to let on/ off an individual and as the doors opened Jane walked off, in that independent two year old style, all Mothers of toddlers know and love. Only the doors closed before we could grab her and this building had more then 20 floors and none of us had been paying close attention to which floor the doors had opened on. My Mom started punching buttons as we could hear Jane screaming this paniced scream through the elevator shaft that had my Mom, and Sarah and I frantic, and soon it seemed we were stopping on every floor. It felt like 5 floors before the doors opened to a kind gentleman standing there with Jane in hand.
4. When Walter was about 6 he was shopping with his Mom in a department store and met another little boy at about his age. They hit it off, were talking (and I believe there was icecream involved) and Walter just followed this boy around as both Mother's were shopping. Only when the boys Mother finished shopping and wrangled her 5 children together and took them out to the car Walter followed. Luckily for the parents involved the Mom took a head count after getting all the kids in the car and found she had one extra head and kid. Sadly for her she had to unpack all the kids to go back into the store to find the lost Mother of this independent little boy. Walter's Mom was frantically trying to find Walter and was beyond relieved when the second Mother brought him back in the store.

It has really helped to realize that each one of us some how got away, freaked out an adult, and that this might just be a phase. A phase that has me saying to myself that being an adult is so highly overrated. And when did I get old enough to emotionally handle this? It also had me realizing that you have to walk in these shoes before you can truly understand what the big deal was and why your Mom's face was contourting into the most amazing shapes and colors you had ever seen.