When I was a kid—maybe 3 or 4 years old—I went missing. My mom had been getting ready to go to the fabric store—Hancock Fabrics—and I didn't want to go. So I disappeared. She looked everywhere in the house, and when she couldn't find me, called the police. Right before the police showed up, she had the feeling that she should look under her bed. There wasn't much space there—definitely less than a foot of clearance—but there I was, fast asleep. When I woke up, I explained why I had crawled under the bed in the first place—I didn't want to go to "Han-pock Fabrics".
A few months ago, the news networks got swept up into the Balloon Boy fiasco, where a kid supposedly crawled into a weather balloon before it was "mistakenly released" into the sky to the horror of many. I remember thinking that he was probably fine, since the whole "he might have climbed into the balloon by accident" angle seemed a lot less plausible than the "he's probably hiding somewhere" one. As a parent, however, the possibility that this child was in danger resonated with me, as it probably did with many parents around the world. It's probably why we felt cheated when the whole thing turned out to be a hoax, and he was found hiding in his attic, likely at the behest of his fame-seeking scumbag parents.
Yesterday, Kelsey went missing at church while I was in class. The lady who was in charge of nursery had taken her eye off Kelsey for a moment, and that was all the time Kelsey needed to slip out the back door and start wandering the neighborhood. When I came out of my class, I saw a lady go out the back door, calling Kelsey's name. I hurried to catch up and find out what had happened, when I saw that a few other people had gone after her. They had just found her laying defiantly on a wooden pallet outside a business two buildings behind the church building when I showed up. I picked her up and carried her back to church. As we walked back, she said that she wanted to go to the playground. My heart was pumping at the brief thought that Kelsey had been lost, but the nursery teacher apologized for not watching her closely, and all was well. Or so I thought.
The guy who normally picks us up for church, Aki-san, didn't show up that day, so we had to come by taxi (after first leaving on bikes and realizing it was too cold for the girls). When church was out, nobody offered us a ride, so I started asking people how I should describe the church building, in order to correctly guide the taxi company to us. In the past, every time I'd described the location of the church building to taxi drivers, they'd get a bit confused (since nobody knows where the Mormon church is). I'd always had to tell them which streets to take and where to turn, so I anticipated a bit of difficulty when I called the taxi company.
I went outside to phone the taxi, away from the noise of the church halls. I explained that the church building was right by the Toyota dealership (the only one in town by a specific name), but the guy on the phone made no attempt to understand what I was saying. This is common in Japan. If you don't speak with a perfect accent, many people make no attempt to figure out what you are trying to tell them. Given that there's often an extremely specific way to ask certain questions, if you don't ask for things in the prescribed way, you often won't get anywhere—even if you pronounce everything correctly. They just give up and wait for you to come back with perfect Japanese, or at least written (in Japanese) instructions of what you want. Stef found this out the hard way when she went to pick her parents up at the train station by herself (luckily, I had given her parents a copy of the address in Japanese in case they needed it).
So, I explained that the church was the very next building, next to the car dealership, but the guy on the line got hung up on the fact that he didn't know which side of the building I was talking about. I got so frustrated with his inability to overlook such an unimportant detail (I mean, really? They can't just figure it out when they get to the car dealership?) that I told him that I no longer needed a taxi and hung up the phone. At this point, I was extremely frazzled. I just wanted to go home.
I walked back into the church to ask someone to either give us a ride or call the taxi company for me, when Stef came rushing towards me, asking me where Kelsey had gone. She was watching Mia, and thought that I was watching Kelsey. I checked in all the rooms at the church, but couldn't find her. I, along with ten other people, rushed outside and started looking in different directions throughout the neighborhood, calling out Kelsey's name. I was overwhelmed with the thought of losing Kelsey, so my calls for her got frantic. Walking with me was a mentally disabled man from church who meant well but kept parroting everything I said in his Japanese-English accent, causing my stress level to go through the roof.
At this point, I began to fear the worst. I continued to shout Kelsey's name as I wandered through the streets, checking the 5 foot-deep drainage canals that surrounded the roads in hopes that I wouldn't find her. Even though Japan is a safe place, there's no place on Earth where every single person can be trusted. The thought of someone taking her terrified me. All I could do is pray that she was all right.
I made my way back to the chapel to see if anybody had seen her, and one of the ladies waved and gave me a thumbs-up sign. Kelsey had gone into the sacrament room hid herself inside the pulpit. I couldn't be upset at her—she's just a kid, and she didn't understand the consequences of hiding. Nevertheless, it took me a good hour or so to get my emotions under control, and I was quite short with everybody as they asked if I was able to call the taxi. I vented my frustration about the taxi debacle and walked away from everybody, not really wanting any human contact. I won't even try to justify my behavior at that point. I know I was wrong.
I'm glad Kelsey was all right. I've resolved to pay closer attention to her at church and in public. We often let her wander around some stores as long as she's within sight, since she's so active and it's basically impossible to match her energy. Kelsey's a good girl; she gets a bit difficult when she's tired or hungry, but who doesn't? She's a sweet girl that likes to play, help, love, and be loved. She's also not even three years old, so we can't expect her to behave like an adult. She just wants to go outside—to go on walks with Mommy or Daddy. It doesn't matter where—the park, the cats around the corner, Han-pock fabrics—she just wants to get out. And there's nothing wrong with that.
No comments:
Post a Comment