But seriously, what if I lose my kid?

True story: Even when I’m not worrying about this, I’m worrying about it.  Sometimes, I'm awakened in the night by this nameless fear. It lurks in closets, under beds, behind doors, and especially out in the streets.

 

But actually, it's not nameless. It's like Voldemort. I don't want to say it, because I don't want it to wake up and start hissing at me with its freaky noseless face. But shhh, okay, here it is, the name of the fear is: Fear of Losing a Kid.

There is nothing funny about losing a kid. And there is especially nothing funny about becoming a parent and suddenly, finding yourself worrying about losing your kid. All the time.

Sometimes, I think it’s all the Internet’s fault.  We know stuff now. Bad stuff. All the stuff. We know that there are crazy people in the world, that there are bad things that can happen, that there are crazy bad things that can happen, and very crazy, very bad things that can also happen.

Only once, knock on wood, knock on anything really, anything at all that will keep me from ever having to feel this fear come up so close to me again,  have I experienced a true feeling of, “Oh no, I’ve gone and done it. I really did Lose My Kid.”

It was a sunny afternoon. Both of my children, J three at the time and M just past one, had woken up from their naps at the same moment. (Yes, they napped at the same time. It was glorious and probably my greatest parental achievement, other than having them in the first place. I could probably sell millions of copies of a book explaining how I managed to entice two toddlers into sleeping the afternoons away, both at the same time, so that Mommy could work on her book. But the problem with writing that particular bestseller: I don’t know how I did it. It just happened. Sometimes, I think it’s because they loved me so much and wanted me to have time to write. I know this is probably not true, but it’s what I’m choosing to believe. Closer to the truth is likely that they learned early that when Mommy didn’t get time to write she was grumpy and erratic. Better to lie in bed, eyes wide open, waiting for the tapping of keys to stop.)

On the day I faced the Nameless Fear head on, the angelic tandem-nappers had awoken and J had asked if he could go downstairs on his own to play while I changed the baby’s diaper. “Of course,” I said. “Meet you down there. We’ll bake cookies.” (I’m making up the “We’ll bake cookies" part. When my son was three, he believed cookie dough came from a tube. He was incredulous when he spent the night at his Nana’s and she actually made cookie dough using a range of ingredients.)

Five minutes later, I carried M down the stairs and called something out to J, probably a snack suggestion or game idea. No answer.

I went into the living room, but he wasn't there. I checked the basement. The lights were off. Not there, either. I looked in the cold cellar, and the laundry room, and the little alcove under the basement stairs.

I started calling his name. Still, nothing.

I ran upstairs, back into the living room, and looked behind the couch. My daughter, on my hip, started shouting his name, too, in her endearing, babyish way. "Are you?" She called. “Are yoooouuuuuu?"

I ran upstairs and checked his room, our room, the bathroom, my office, my husband’s office. I called J’s name again and again.

I ran into the backyard. The gate was swinging open and the yard was empty. The sight of the open gate made me feel sick. Had it been open before? Could he even open it himself? Worse: had someone else opened it? (This is when it does not pay to be a writer. Worst case scenarios are not always funny stories, and these not-so-funny stories are not only given credence, they’re given a storyline, a plot that forms all by itself, with villains and subtexts and a conclusion in which you one day see your son on a backstreet in Paris, but he doesn’t remember you because his memory has been wiped out.)

I sprinted around to the front yard and looked up and down the sidewalk, hoping to see a little boy with blond curly hair, wandering down the street, back home towards me. This was not like J. He was cautious, would never have ventured more than a few feet away from the house without thinking better of it and coming back home again. I knew this about him. Which meant he was gone. Gone. Just like that.

I ran inside to get the portable phone, but before I did, I took one last look up and down the street. I felt like I was standing at the edge of a precipice, with my life before this happened behind me, and my life after this happened a horrifying chasm I was going to have to dive into. (I told you, I have a wild imagination.) Is this really happening? I asked myself. Where is he? What do I do?

I remembered something I'd read once about the first 20 minutes a child is missing being the most crucial. Why is this? Who knows? I didn’t want to think about it too deeply.

I called 911. The operator asked my address, then my name, and how to spell it. I couldn't remember, but this could be in part because my husband’s name is long and Polish "Please," the operator said to me. "Please calm down and understand that these things almost always turn out fine. The faster you answer my questions, the faster we can help you find your son." Find your son. I think my son is missing. These things almost always turn out fine. Almost. But not always.

I answered all his questions, continuing to run around the house as we talked, up the stairs, down the stairs, into the yard, out onto the sidewalk again, over and over until I was sweating and my daughter was bumping and giggling on my hip, thinking we were playing a game. “Arrre youuuuu, buddeee?”

Now the hard part: “What was he wearing?” The operator asked. A red shirt? A blue shirt? Just his Pull Up, or was he wearing shorts? What kind of a mother was I that I didn’t know?

Next, I described his body type, his hair, his eyes.  Then I sat down on the stairs and started to cry. I cried because I was describing my son to the police. I was describing my son to the police because I couldn't find him. He was with me one moment, and then he was gone. Hello, Nameless Fear. It’s not very nice to meet you.

I heard a voice. "Mama, why are you crying? Who are you talking to?"

J had chocolate and crumbs all over his face. His beautiful, perfect, not lost face. "The police," I said. "Mama called the police." Now he was smiling. The police. You can call them? Cool.

“Can I talk?” He asked.

I shook my head, feeling stupid and happy at the same time. I should have known. While my son was indeed cautious, and not the type to wander away from the house, he was at the time, and still is, a Food Sneaker. He had a particular proclivity for these double chocolate cookies from Costco that my mom would bring over. Some of them had been in the cookie jar. He had probably been lying in his bed, during his two hour nap, planning a way to get downstairs on his own so he could have a cookie. When I said I was going to change M he saw his opening and went for it.

How had I not thought of this? I glanced into the kitchen and saw the stool pushed close to the counter and the empty cookie jar sitting open at the edge of it. I'd make a terrible detective. I'd missed all the clues, and panicked instead.

"Hello?" Said the operator.

"I found my son," I said, sheepish.

"I gathered that. Is he okay? Do you need medical help?"

I thought about saying something like, “He might after I’m through with him,” but knew it wasn’t the time to make a dumb joke. Plus, they might call Children’s Aid. "No. He was just hiding behind the easy chair in the living room, eating cookies. I'm so sorry to have bothered you."

The operator assured me I was not the first mother who had called him in a panicked state about a child who wasn't really missing. He cancelled the police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances. “Thank you,” I said, over and over. Then I hung up and hugged my son so hard he wriggled away.

"Why are you sad, Mama?"

"Because I thought I lost you," I said, wiping the chocolate from his little mouth. Vowing that I would never let him out of my sight again, take him for granted again, do anything except be a perfect mother again.

Of course I have, many times since that day, let him out of my sight, taken him for granted, been an imperfect mother. And that Nameless Fear, it still stalks me constantly, most particularly on the not-so-perfect mother days. Essentially, nothing really changed during those ten terrifying minutes on that hot summer afternoon. I learned a few things: that I’m awful in crisis. (I'm too embarrassed to fully reveal the extent of my hyperventilating, but suffice it to say the operator could possibly now qualify as my therapist.) I also learned I need to keep the cookies somewhere else. And I learned, in a very small way, that everything really can change within the confines of a minute or two. Catastrophes like earthquakes, oil spills, acts of cruelty, they can strike. And none of us, no matter how careful we are, or how much we have, or how smart we are, or how nice we are, are immune. That kind of sucks.

The bottom line: you have to live your life. You have to go out and do things and hope for the best.

Besides, the kids will probably notice if you wrap them in cotton batting and implant a tracking chip in their forearm. (Don’t think I haven’t considered it.)