re: parent's feelings and missing kids.....
In the early 50s, my younger sister who was about two wandered off into
the vast forest behind our house by crawling through a dog-hole under the
fence. I was supposed to be watching her because my mom had the flu but I
got involved in something, and forgot that I even had a sister.... My mom
thought I was playing a joke at first... then the panic set in... My dad was
out on army manuvers fifty miles away. We went to every house in our small
neighborhood for help. When she finally realized Connie wasn't at anyone's
house, I remember seeing that look of pure, abject terror on my mother's face
- and it scared me worse than anything I'd ever seen before. One of the
older kids found her safe and sound in the woods not more than a half mile
from the house about 4 hours later.
When my daughter was four she wandered off in a big, busy mall, and for
nearly an hour, I got to share some of that horror as well. I do recall
thinking that when my daughter wandered off, that some of wolves in the mall
might be far more dangerous than those in that Wisconsin forest. Smart kid
that she is, she went to the first car that looked like ours, sat down and
waited for us to get tired of shopping.....
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