Helen Martin’s Blog

I asked someone to call security and I went back to “our spot.”

It was then that Ann, a Mall employee, came over to us. She said I needed to stay put: “We can’t bring him to you if we can’t find you.” I didn’t know what to do next anyway. Ken was gone looking and I didn’t want to keep leaving the other kids. So even though it was hard to do it I was a little relieved to have to stop and sit down.

She gave me something in addition to “Where’s Will” to occupy my mind when she asked me what he was wearing. Describing his outfit cleared my head a little.

I looked over at our older children and tried to read their faces to see how they were. They knew I was scared, but I didn’t want them to think their mother was unravelling. I said something like, “Let’s pray, guys, God knows where Will is.”

When Ann heard that she said, “I’m a Christian, too.” It was a great kindness for God to send me someone who shared my faith at such a time. And knowing she trusted God made me able to believe what she had told me earlier: that in her 12 years at the Mall, every lost child had always been found.

My awareness of the passage of time was greatly obscured by the fact that every second was too long. So I can only guess that it was quite soon after we prayed when I was told that a little boy had been found. A security guard way younger than me - who had to tell me, “Calm down, Ma’am” - led me to the “found child.”

The whole way I kept thinking, What if it isn’t him? What if it’s a different little guy?

But it was my Will.