I'm Tired

My son is thirty years old now and I often wonder where the time has gone.  It seems it was just yesterday when I turned around and he was a little boy. Unfortunately, a parent’s worst nightmare is losing their child.  We hear of child abductions all the time and there isn’t anything that scares us more. 

The stats indicate that more than 350,000 family abductions occur in the U.S. each year; amounting to nearly 1,000 per day! In Canada the stats are lower but scary nevertheless.  The first Canadian statistics report documented showed that there were 57,233 children reported missing in 1987.

My son was born in 1976 and there was so much going on in the news at that time about child abductions even back then.  The Six Million Dollar Man television series was very popular that year.  The lead character, Steve Austin played by Lee Majors was a bionic man and no doubt I was crazy over him.  I was so crazy over this show that I had a t-shirt made for my son Steven, complete with the caption six million dollar baby written on the back. He wore it outside until I found out that the easiest way for a child to be abducted was to broadcast his name all over his clothing.  All the predator had to do was call the child by his/her name and the child would think he/she was a friend of the family and likely to go willingly with this stranger. 

I did have a scary episode when Steven was three years old.  We were shopping as a family in one of the large department stores at the time.  My husband and I went in one direction to look for the articles we wanted and my grandmother and Bob, her husband went in another.  We all agreed to meet at a designated point when we were finished. 

Tony and I thought Steven was with them and we returned to the rendez-vous site.  We expected to see Steven there but he wasn’t.  My grandmother thought Steven was with us.  Fear grabbed me by the throat.  It was a big department store. Steven could have been anywhere or worse still, in the hands of a homicidal maniac. 

Here we were four adults, not one of us thought to go to the administration and have them search for him.  Instead Bob told us to go off in different directions and look for him.  I was so scared.  I thought the worse.  I was so blinded by fear and tears and I could hardly see my way around.  But the lord was on my side because I was the one who actually found him. 

He was in the bedding department.  The store had a double bed with their bedding on display and lo and behold there was my three year son, sound asleep in the middle of the bed. I couldn’t believe my eyes I was so happy.  I found my husband and then together we found my grandmother and Bob. 

I asked Steven why he left Bob like that and he answered.  Mommy I’m tired!

I would love to say it was the end of the story but it was not.  For the next three years we had trouble with Steven wondering away.  The minute you took your eyes off of him for even a second he was gone.  I didn’t know what I was going to do to get that child to stay close by.  Some people suggested a child harness; he was already six years old.  I never liked those things anyhow.

I actually have the television to thank for stopping Steven from roaming out of sight.  By this time I was already divorced so it was only the two of us at home.  One night he woke up with a tummy ache and wanted to lie on the coach and watch television with me. 

The made for TV movie I was watching was about Adam Walsh, a six year old boy who made the headlines after he was abducted and killed. Daniel J. Travanti did an excellent job of playing his father.  My son heard the terrible screams of the child and asked what was going on. 

I had a chance to explain to him. It was Adam Walsh, the six year old boy whom he identified with,

That made the difference for him.  All the years of his family trying to get him to understand the gravity of the situation and that he had to stay close to Mommy or which ever adult he was with, did not change a thing.  It was this little boy, Adam Walsh a little boy the same age, who was able to get through to him. It was those screams that made it all real to him.

After the movie I questioned him to see if he was okay and he really was.  He knew it would never happen to him because he would always stay by Mommy.  I asked him if he wanted a snack or something to drink and he answered, no Mommy I am going back to bed now, I’m tired.