In an Instant

Last Tuesday, Kenny didn’t get off the bus.  As I sat at the dining room table, drinking coffee while leafing through a magazine, Sam walked in the door and said,

“Did you pick Kenny up from school?  He wasn’t on the bus.”

In an instant, life stopped.

With the next breath, I was in the van racing toward Eastwood. As I rushed the stops and starts in the five blocks separating our home from school, the world seemed far more infinite than I ever before imagined.

Kenny could be out there anywhere. 

With anyone.

Arriving breathless at the school, I all but sprinted past a school administrator who explained, “Someone called to say he was a car rider.”

Someone who?  Not me!

As I rounded the corner and found him safely riding the bench, animatedly talking to teachers to his left and right, I almost sobbed in relief.

In that moment, I swear, I took my second breath.

“Hi, Mom!” he chirped.  “You’re late!”

I admit, all of this sounds pretty dramatic, because my eight minutes of torment hardly compares to how the Colorado parents of Jessica Ridgeway must feel right now. I’m pretty certain it’s probably been at least a week since their last breath.  

Today I read police say they’ve found a body.

A body.

As a mother, I pray not Jessica’s.

The mother in me wills it.

“I want her to walk through that door.  I NEED her to walk through that door,” Sarah Ridgeway pleaded on national television.

As I hugged Kenny, it reminded me of the time nearly ten years ago Mayle got “lost” walking home from school.  Her ordeal brought her home by way of Ben Franklin to a driveway full of police officers. 

She was 20 minutes late.  I’d like to say I’ve mellowed a little since then, but I haven’t. 

Our children are so small on a planet so unaware, and worry isn’t enough to keep all of them safe.  I’d trade my sanity for their health and safety.  Sometimes I think I already have.

Until Jessica comes home, a mother aches.  In solidarity, I ache too. 

And in solidarity, each day my children come home safely, I will remember with every breath to be thankful.