Edgy Mama

We’re back from the New Hampster, which was surprisingly fun. Not “surprisingly” because we weren’t with fun people (E’s fam) or a fun place (lakeland paradise), but because my attitude about traveling long distances with small children has never been the best. And the Atlanta airport proved me right by grounding us for an extra three hours (we could have been home sooner if we’d rented a car in Atlanta and driven).

The mind-numbingly dull experience of spending multiple hours in an overcrowded airport was overshadowed by ten minutes of heart-pounding hell when my son disappeared in the extremely busy terminal.

Everyone has a lost child story. Ours, which I’m still processing emotionally, goes like this: E and the kids are standing by the always mesmerizing vending machines. I’m sitting about 15 feet away (not reading, for one of the only times ever in an airport). I look up. I immediately see E and the girl. I do a quick scan for the boy. I don’t see him. I stand up. E realizes in the same moment that something is wrong.

“Where’s C?” I say. E shrugs, grabs the girl’s hand and starts walking through the crowd. He keeps looking back at the vending machines as if they are going to suddenly spit our son out along with a can of Coke.

I stand in the middle of the terminal, turning circles, looking every direction. I run towards the Men’s Room and ask some guy to check the bathroom. I start yelling my son’s name. E returns, empty-handed. We decide that he should go one way and I’ll go the other.

At this point, my girl is crying, scared. I make her sit down with our carry-on bags (which we have totally abandoned, computers, guitar, wallets and all). A nice Mom who had been sitting across from us comes to sit with my girl, who is now on the edge of hysteria.

I feel my own hysterics coming on, but I realize that I have to channel all my energy towards finding my son. I see E coming back down the terminal. Still no boy. I actually whimper outloud. I start jogging the other direction, weaving through the crowd. OJ Simpson’s got nothing on a terrified Mom.

A young woman, also a mom, whom I later learn is from Hendersonville, and the teenage boys of the mom who is watching my girl, follow me. I tell them my son’s name and describe what he’s wearing. I notice that I’m stuttering slightly. They start searching. I can see E talking to the guy back at the flight desk.

Now I’m yelling his name and people are looking at me funny. I see the door open to a janitor’s closet and go in there to ask about him. They haven’t seen him. I’m dodging people, scanning, looking in corners and behind rows of seats. I know I have a crazy, panicked look on my face because people are now actively avoiding me. Except for a few understanding souls who stop me and ask how they can help.

I head toward what my son calls the “moving hills,” better known as escalators. I wonder if he would have gone on one alone. I doubt it. At this point, all kinds of horrific images which I can’t even express aloud are revolving through my head. I’m imagining headlines.

I turn to run back to our gate. Just then I see E coming from the opposite direction, our son in his arms. I grab my boy, who isn’t even upset. “I was looking for you, Mommy,” he says. “I want some juice.”

E says our son was strolling along, calmly, but quite a ways away. A four-year-old child alone. No one stopped him to ask his name or where his parents were. No one hurt him or scared him.

He was only gone for ten minutes or so, but it felt like hours to me. A small rip, leaking blood, opened in my heart in those minutes. But it will have a chance to heal.

About a year ago, I wrote a post about attending the Bele Chere festival and writing my cell number on my kids’ arms with Sharpies in case we were separated in the crowd. It hadn’t occurred to me to do the same in a busy airport, but now I think it will be family policy in any crowd. Anywhere.