Here

We lost Greyson at a mall today. For a full minute, which felt to the both of us, like ten, he was nowhere to be found. We were getting frozen yogurt at a store. Roque and I were both sampling and dispensing when we realized Greyson wasn't within five feet of us. He wasn't within ten feet of us. He wasn't within twenty feet. We panicked. We started running, yelling his name. Roque was checking the exits and running in and out of stores. I just kept calling, "Greyson! Grey Grey!!!" madly scanning the crowds that surrounded us. It felt like a bad dream and I must have seemed like a mad woman. My mind was racing, my son is missing. My first thought was that someone had taken him. Who, and what will they do to him? I kept thinking, is this really happening to me? All the stories I've seen on the news.....am I going to become one of those mothers who lives not knowing where their children are? This is a nightmare, I want to wake up. If we can't find him what do we do? Call 911? How can we leave this mall, this place, and go home without him? We'd just never leave. Roque and I kept checking back with each other, our arms empty and grasping.

Finally, out of a crowd he came running, in his bright yellow T-shirt and shorts, not a care in the world, with a big smile on his face. "Mummy!!!" He had gone to the fireplace in the middle of the food court, a good 50 feet away. I ran to him and swept him up in my arms. I couldn't stop squeezing, but I couldn't stop yelling. He was quiet, and I know he knew why we were so upset. This isn't the first time we've discussed him having to stay close to us. I kept saying to him, over and over, "You must never run away from me, ever again." As we were talking, a lady came up to us and asked, "Are you ok, Mom?" I burst into tears and blurted, "No!" She was a kind mother of two, and she said she watched me run back and forth in that little square of the mall, completely empathizing with my terror. As we talked, tears just poured. She left us telling me to go have a beer.

What would I do without Greyson? The irony of it all was I was having one of those, I-need-a-break-from-being-a-Mommy days. I was cranky, hot, and tired of putting sunscreen on a thankless wriggling child, tired of rushing to feed a distracted toddler on the run, just tired of it all. I say I wish I had more time for myself, but after what happened today, I don't know what I'd do with all that time. I don't know how I could possibly fill the hole Greyson would leave. As I write this, Greyson is asleep in his room, and I am thankful, so thankful, that he is just...here.