Lost and Found

In 1990, my family took its last family vacation. None of my older siblings had married yet and my brother was a year away from leaving on his mission, so my parents planned a trip unlike one we had ever taken. We were heading east, and for a Montana girl who had never been further east than Billings, it was a big deal.

With eight of us traveling, we caravaned in two cars: a cute, white Pontiac Grand Am and a not-nearly-as cute grey Chevrolet station wagon. We flew into Chicago and drove our two rental cars through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington D.C. New Jersey and New York in a grand three week loop. Looking at a map, I now realize it was no different mileage-wise than driving to California and back, which we had done more than once, but the east was far more exotic, not to mention the oh-la-la of the air travel. That was something my family just didn't not do. We were drivers. We drove. But not this time!

Many firsts occurred during our family odyssey, besides my first plane ride. I saw Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera and my brother lose fifty dollars to a street hustler. I paid eight dollars for a milkshake in Times Square in New York City. I saw church history sites that before had only been pictures in a lesson manual. Seeing them firsthand gave weight to the stories about the prophet Joseph Smith and early Saints I had learned all my life. Additionally, for the first time ever, my family got lost from each other.

While driving through a town in New York, my father went through a stale yellow light and my mother was forced to stop at the red (having, I believe, been stopped earlier in the day for running a red light and getting off with a warning). In my father's defense, he had told my mother the plan for the day, including our final destination, but my mother wasn't listening, or, more likely, was taking care of something else, and during that pause at the red light when she lost sight of the grey station wagon, realized she didn't know where she was going.

It's hard to remember the time before cell phones, when a person could actually be unreachable, but that night, my mother and three of us children, and my father and three others, had no idea where the others were.

We laugh about it now - how we and my mother investigated the parking lots of as many dive motels as we could find and how my father's group roamed the parking lots of some of the better hotels. My father jokes about it being the only time in his married life when he had no idea where his wife was at night, but if we are true to the memory, it was an awfully nervous feeling. A sad feeling.

We rejoiced when we found each other the next day in the parking lot of the Peter Whitmer farm. We hugged and stumbled over each others' explanations; those of us who ended up with Mom rubbing in the fact that we got to stay at a better hotel (my dad picks some doozies!). I suppose hindsight can add amusement to an unplanned and unwanted separation. But, in the moment, it never feels funny. And it's definitely not fun.

Today, to avoid another frustrating drive through the construction hell I must travel through to get into town each day, I loaded Seth and Sam's bikes into the van so that they could enjoy a bike ride while I walked and pushed Henry in the stroller. We had several hours to kill between Sam's Safety Town summer camp and their piano lessons at three o'clock and the river trail that runs through town is a pleasantly flat and long stretch of pavement for bikers and walkers to enjoy.

We have done this before, them biking and me walking, and the boys know they are supposed to "check in" with me every so often - never getting so far ahead that I can't see them. Today, I unfortunately told the boys they didn't need to keep quite so close (as they were constantly getting off their bikes to wait until I came into view) but assumed the "come back and check in" understanding was still in place. Before I could even get the wheels on the baby jogger on, Seth and Sam had taken off. Not at all worried, I set off a few minutes later.

It wasn't until I had gone about a mile that I became concerned that I hadn't seen either of them since their initial take-off. Truthfully, I was more annoyed than anything that they were so far ahead and hadn't bothered to check into see how far I wanted to go.

I continued down the path but I was no longer at ease while walking. Now, my eyes were busy scanning and scoping my entire environment - wondering if they had turned off somewhere or stopped at one of the few parks with swings along the way. When I got to the mile and a half point, and had gone as far as I had planned on going, I yelled out their names and then turned around.

Suddenly, I doubted the certainty I had felt that they had even headed in the same direction as me. I mentally conceded that they might have gone the opposite way which could explain how our paths had never crossed. My heart started pounding as I imagined them confused and wondering why their mother wasn't following behind them and with that thought, I started jogging, as fast as I could, back to the car.

I tried philosophically empathizing with Heavenly Father about how he must feel when His children are disobedient and distant and don't "come back and check in." I even thought, I could use this for as a story about prayer in a talk or lesson, but then - remembering that I wasn't, in fact, omniscient and didn't have the luxury of even one-sided knowledge - I dropped the thought and returned to my mortal reaction of freaking out.

I still kept hoping that our paths would cross. Every biker that appeared in the distance disappointed me when their body or bike proved to be too big to be Seth or Sam. I hated my own physical weakness which forced me to stop and walk every so often, lamenting the fact that I was not one of those moms who could lift a car to save her child. I couldn't even jog a ten minute mile!

When I hadn't seen hide nor hair of either boy by the time I got back to the van, and saw that they were not waiting for me there, I started to cry. I had been rhythmically praying on my way back, "Please let the boys be safe. Please let the boys be safe," and I know I expected that prayer to be answered by seeing them waiting for me. Their absence plunged fear into my whole self and every hooligan I had passed became suspect in my mind. It had now been over 45 minutes since I had seen two of my children and I started to mentally prepare myself that something bad could have happened.

My first instinct was to continue on in the opposite direction - to see if they were waiting for me further along the trail. Instead, even though something inside of me was arguing about wasting precious time, I stopped and unlocked the van, found my phone, and checked for messages. Sure enough, an unknown number had called and left a message about ten minutes earlier.

I called the number and was told via recorded message that the mailbox was full. I listened to the message and heard Nancy telling me she had my son, Sam. But she didn't say Seth. My heart sunk as I thought about them now, not only being separated from me, but being separated from each other.

I called Nancy again and this time she picked up. Good news! She had Sam and Seth. They were sitting on the side of the road at the recycling center. What? How in the world did they end up there? It wasn't even on the trail. Nancy promised me she'd stay with them until I could get there, which was about ten minute drive from where I had parked.

Along the way, I had the time to decide how to react. Honestly, my initial emotion (after relief) was anger. I wanted to shout at them and blame them for causing me so much worry. I wanted to take away their bikes for the rest of the summer. Yell at them for willy nilly riding so far ahead of me without once stopping or turning around to look for me. That was what I had told them to do! But, luckily, I had those ten minutes to remember that these were two scared little boys. That I was lucky. That our afternoon could have ended so, so, so, so much worse.

By the time I arrived, Nancy had calmed both boys down. So much so, that neither of them seemed too upset at being lost. She assured me there had been many tears at first discovery, that she didn't know why they had become separated and didn't have time to sit there and investigate with me. But she did let me give her a hug and a thank you.

I'm still having a hard time comprehending how it happened. Seth tells me he kept going because he was looking for the car. When I point out the fact that it would have been impossible for him to find, because he had never turned around to get back to it, he acts confused about how the trail works ( i.e. you go so far...you turn around...and you go back. Frustrating). But that, apparently, is how it happened. Sammy followed his big brother until he got too tired and stopped, which is how they became separated. The fact that they left the trail to continue their search for the car only has me shaking my head at how lucky they were that Sam had the sense to stop and cry... alerting another mother that he was lost.

Tonight, I'm grateful. I'm grateful that I have a family of five to cook for. That I have three sons who need reminders about manners at the dining room table. That I have three boys to boss into the shower, put pajamas on and read a story to. I'm grateful for cell phones, and that Sam miraculously knows both my and Jay's phone numbers. I'm grateful for a kind woman who took the time to comfort my children. And I'm grateful that my prayer was answered. I'm so grateful that my precious sons are safe and close.

As for this turning into a funny story in the future - it doesn't have the same zing as driving around hotel parking lots, but you never know. The image of me running as fast as I was trying to run is pretty funny.

I'll leave you with that more lighthearted thought.