I am thankful for...

prayers and police.

Earlier today I was taught a lesson. A lesson I wish I didn't have to learn. As a mom there are few things worse than the nightmare that something could happen to one of your children. When you hear the horrible stories of things that have happened to other people's children....it is always that: other people's children. You think in your mind "what would I do if...?" "how would I handle...?" and then you think "that won't happen to me though, so what am I worried about?"

Today was a normal day. Clean house, run errands, get ready for the afternoon. I usually teach piano on Tuesday afternoons so I was ready for that. The girl I teach will ride the bus here with Adrian after school. Sometimes the bus is a few minutes late, so when they were 5 minutes late...I wondered. At ten minutes late, I began to be a little concerned, but thought "they are together, they will get here soon." At 15 minutes late I was starting to get irritated and thinking they must be goofing around or something. I called my mom's to see if he had gone there and he wasn't there so I waited. At 20 minutes late I called the school. They told me to call the bus company. I called the bus company, who then called the driver and told me that they didn't have any riders that day for our stop. What?! Now, I was really worried. I called the school back, the secretary who I spoke with went to an administrator and I could hear her asking "should I tell his mom to call the police?" and my heart stopped. The panic sets in and the imagination starts running a mile a minute. She tells me they want me to notify police...and here is me "should I call non-emergency or 911?" (Like an IDIOT) So he said "Your son is missing, this is an emergency, call 911." So I did. I have never had to call 911 before (and hope to never have to again). The dispatcher was so calm and asked me the standard questions. Do you know how hard it is to remember which clothes your kid wore that morning when you are trying to keep it together while holding a wiggling baby and trying to quiet a 2 year old who has no clue what is going on? Then she asked me if there was anywhere else he could be....I am sorry to admit that this is the point where I thought to call the other girl's mom. Things were just happening so fast! I called her mom and asked if "girl" was supposed to be coming for piano today and her mom said, "oh, no. I am so sorry I forgot to call you. We are still out of town...why, what's wrong?" Through tears and sobs I told her Adrian was missing and she said they would pray for us.

Then I called my dear friend, Heidi, who lives around the corner from us and asked her if she had seen him at all. She is awesome! She right away offered to watch my kids so I could look for him and I told her I would call her back. Then I called Andrew back and he was on his way home from school already so he was coming. That is when I got the call from a local Police officer who told me his name (wish I could remember it now!) and told me that he had Adrian at the (store) by his school. I felt instantly relieved. He gave the phone to Adrian and I asked him what happened. Adrian told me that he was afraid to come home since he thought he was going to get in trouble for getting a detention. What?! I told him I was on my way and then I spoke to the police officer who said he would take him to the station and I could pick him up there.

I called Heidi back and rushed the kids over to her house. She told me that when I had called and said that he had been found she told her kids. They had just been praying that we would find him and her son said, wow mom that was fast! She said she told him that's what happens when you pray. Thank you Heidi for teaching your children to pray, not only for themselves, but for others! I felt the peace that comes from other's prayers today. When I got to the station Adrian was sucking on a lollipop hanging out with the desk clerk. I was so relieved to see him, but worried that he was having fun while I was living a nightmare. I thought I was going to have to answer a lot of questions, but they just asked him if he knew me and he said "yup, that's my mom." And we were on our way. When we got in the car I fell apart. Then the officer who had picked him up knocked on my window. He told me that he had gotten the alert and was reading the description while walking towards the school from the station and looked up and saw him standing in front of the store. He talked to us for a few minutes and then told Adrian that he had a lot of people worried about him and he needed to remember that in the future.

Let's just say it has since been a looooong afternoon/evening. Adrian had gotten in trouble for goofing around in class and was "written up." The thing is, this isn't the first time that has happened--in the past the consequence has been grounding and loss of wii/movies/books and other stuff like that. Nothing that I think is that scary. He said that when he got outside he decided that he wasn't going to get on the bus and instead walked the other direction. He walked around downtown...made it over to the movie theater and started to get scared. He said he realized he was all alone and decided he wanted to go home, but he wasn't sure which way to go. Then he realized he was lost. He ended up making his way back over to the school and that is when he was found. In total he was missing for over an hour. That is a long time to wander around by yourself!

There was a lot of talk about what happens to children who are missing...how that affects other people: family, friends, police, neighbors, people in the community. There was also a lot of talk about running away from our problems. We don't know if the school will have any consequences for Adrian and let me tell you, this was a hard one to figure out what to do. We were so overjoyed that he was home safe and sound, but frustrated with his poor choice. We had him do all his homework and then he wrote a letter to the secretary at the school apologizing:

"Dear Mrs. (name),

I am very sorry that you had to stay at school helping to look for me. I will never do something like that again. I will not run away again. What I did was wrong because it made a lot of people stop to look for me. I was being selfish. In the future I will think of others and I will take responsibility for my own actions. Thank you for working hard to find me and for caring about me.

Very Sorry,

Adrian"

Tomorrow he will write a letter to the police officers who looked for him. We are so grateful that he was found so quickly and that there were so many people who dropped everything. Even though he was "missing" he was found before he could have gone really missing. Adrian told us that he had thought he wanted to run away. When Andrew asked him what he learned today he said that he learned he doesn't want to run away. That it is lonely and scary. He said that he felt like nobody cared about him so he was going to run away. There was a lot of crying and lot of hugging tonight.

I have been thinking a lot about the tender mercies of God in all of this. Last Sunday we had stake conference and there were some fabulous speakers. I was trying to listen and I got quite a bit of it...turns out that I got the most important parts! The first youth speaker (used to be one of my Mia Maids...) spoke about being an example to her peers. How it can sometimes be lonely and how God's people are "peculiar." I was able to use this to show Adrian that being different for going to church and for asking others not to swear is not unique to him. That having "friends" is not always the most important thing, even though it can sometimes feel lonely when you seem to be the only one. The mission president and his wife both spoke about doing hard things. "Do the hard thing" was their message. And then our Stake President told a story about some boys who wanted to watch some baby chicks hatch. They were so excited to see the chicks break through their shells, but they were concerned about how hard it seemed. So, as the chicks struggled to break through the shells the boys decided to help the birds out a little bit. Sadly, each of the birds that they helped ended up dying because they had not received the necessary strength from the hard work of breaking through the shell on their own. I explained to Adrian that we can do hard things. It might be hard to come home and tell your parents that you made a mistake...but, we do not run away from that. We can do the hard things. I explained to him that no matter how much we love him we cannot take away the hard things. Some parents might try to remove the trials from their children's lives. They may think that they are helping them or making their children happier by doing so. This is not because they are mean or stupid or bad parents. They truly believe that they are making their children stronger by making their lives "easier." In reality, their children will suffer from their lack of strength at some point in their lives. Adrian seemed to understand that life can be hard, but we can do those hard things. I hope that he learned whatever lesson he needed to today. I wish I could take away the fear and frustration he must have been feeling, but maybe then he would still be thinking about running away....

The silver lining: tonight as we said family prayers it was Andrew's turn. I felt impressed to say a prayer as well. So, after Andrew was done I asked to say another one. I found myself expressing to our Father in Heaven the love and gratitude that we have for the outcome of today, of our love for Adrian and our joy in his presence. I shared my love for Adrian and my desires for him to be happy and healthy. When we were done praying I could tell that Adrian was touched. I gave him a hug and for the first time, he said "Good night mom." There was no hesitation at the use of "mom" and he said it so naturally that it was like he always said it. I love Adrian so much and I am proud to be his mom.

WE LOVE YOU ADRIAN!!!