Helen Martin’s Blog

I’m guessing that Will was reported found before we reported him lost.

It seems he followed a group of friends as they walked past our family. When they finally stopped at about the distance of a half a block later, one of the guys felt a tug on the back of his pants. He turned and looked down and there was Will, smiling at him. He knew he should pick him up, and to his relief Will didn’t cry. Of course, he kept smiling the whole time.

And that’s where I found him.

Ken got back about 10 seconds after the security guard and I left. He was told that a child was found and he started in our direction. He knew he was on my trail when he overheard one girl say to another, “Did you see her face? She was really freaked out, wasn’t she?”

When he got to us I was in the middle of the best hug of my life. Ken peeled Will off me and I hugged the guy who had found him, or rather, the guy he found.

We brought our dear little one back to his siblings and the reunion was a great sight to behold.

Ken and I could have crawled into bed and slept sixteen hours (with Will between us) but as unbelievable as it felt, we knew we had to stay and let the kids have ice cream and go on more rides. It was Henry’s fourth birthday! We needed to give him and all our other children as many pleasant memories of the day as we could.

Later, while I was waiting for Ken and the kids to get off the bumper cars, I saw our hero posing for a goofy picture with his friends. I came up and asked them to hold the pose so I could get a shot, too. It is quite fitting, isn’t is? (He’s the guy on the left.)

That night when I was home in my kitchen making lunches for the next day and doing the dishes and folding clothes - all the things I am so often up late for and tempted to complain about - I was overwhelmed by what an unspeakable privilege it is to have simple things to do.

I was home. I was not in a police station describing my child’s clothes. I was not trying to find the lock of his baby hair for a sample of his DNA, or the most recent picture of him for the news. I was doing beautiful, meaningful, boring stuff. And I was grateful beyond words.

I don’t think that will change, nor will I ever get over the blissful relief of that hug; that feeling of holding his soft sweet littleness again.

Everyday Life is punctuated by moments that either terrify me or make me overjoyed. But they’re only the punctuation, not the narrative. These moments feel more real than the others for their intensity; I live harder, more intensely, when something wonderful or dire is happening - hence the feeling that those experiences take years off my life. But they aren’t any more real or important than reading a story to the boys at naptime.

Terror clarifies; joy magnifies, but the lens is always focused on Everyday Life. So while I learn a lot from the exciting, I live for the mundane.