Helen Martin’s Blog

Let me start by saying that we found Will within five minutes.

That means, of course, that for those same agonizing minutes our 22 month old baby was lost. What made it especially frightening is that it happened at Camp Snoopy in the Mall of America.

I won’t be able to tell the whole story in one shot. It is just too hard to put myself back there for too long, even though it had such a blissful ending.

I have never experienced anything like it before. Last summer, when Henry was three, he wandered away from Ken at the ocean and was gone for about as long. Henry had gone toward the condos, thankfully, and not out with the tide, and two nice ladies who had observed our family at play and recognized him were walking him back down to Ken, when he met them on his way up.

For Ken it was pretty terrifying. But I didn’t know about it until it was over. I am sure I hugged and squeezed and cried on Henry upon hearing the story, but I got to have the relief of a happy ending before I even knew what had taken place.

Not this time. I felt it all.

It was a little over two weeks ago when our family - which rarely frequents such mob scenes as the Mall - was there. The kids were playing with the animated dinosaur skeleton when I took Will out of his stroller. I felt sorry for him being stuck in there and was going to hold him for a while. He started squiggling to get down just at the moment that I had to bend down to the stroller basket to get some more money. I set him down beside me, got the money –

– and here it gets sickening and I want to stop telling the story.

I looked next to me; I looked all around me. No Will.

How many times has my voice had the edge of panic in it as I have said, “Where’s the baby?!” only to see the youngest child behind Ken’s leg?

But no matter where I looked, Will wasn’t.

It was excruciating to run in different directions scanning every inch and not seeing him; to ask people who I instinctively knew hadn’t seen him if they had and hearing them say, “No.” (One seemed almost annoyed by the question.) I wanted to start calling his name, but I knew he probably wouldn’t hear me, or wouldn’t answer me, or answer loudly enough for me to know where to run next. I thought about starting to scream and not stopping until everyone helped me look for him.

Every second that went by I faced the unbearable reality that I hadn’t found him during that second. Each moment the fear was new and stronger.

But there was also the woman who followed me back to “our spot” on one of my panicked returns and offered to help. There were the two or three families who stayed with our older children and talked to them about school and stuff while Ken and I searched. And there was Ann.

But I need to take that break now.

First - our beautiful Will did not even cry once while he was lost. On the contrary he had a fine time. When we got to him he was smiling cheerfully.

Like always. Like Will.