I get that sinking feeling …

…all over again when I think about it.

It was the sum­mer of 1997. We were get­ting ready to leave for a relax­ing vaca­tion at our favorite des­ti­na­tion, Pismo Beach. I was in the house fin­ish­ing the laun­dry and pack­ing the suit­cases. Big­Bob went to the garage to get the car ready.

So the boys, who were then 10 and 5 1/2 years old, went out­side to play. I reminded them to stay on the quiet cir­cle where our house was located and not go out onto the busier street with which it inter­sected. There are two entrances to the cir­cle from the more heavily-trafficked thor­ough­fare and plenty of room between the two to ride bikes. I also asked #1Son to keep an eye on his lit­tle brother, who was speed­ing up and down the side­walk on his Big Wheels tri­cy­cle wear­ing a neon green Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles helmet.

The street that ran par­al­lel to ours is also a cir­cle, but it can be accessed in either direc­tion from the busier street. So it is pos­si­ble to turn left or right and loop around back to the main intersection.

After a short while, #1Son came in the house, breath­less and red-cheeked from rid­ing his bike, and asked, “Hey, Mom, where’s Mattie-Boo?”

I froze, but it was too soon to panic. “He went out­side with you and you were sup­posed to be keep­ing an eye on him, remem­ber? So why are you ask­ing me where he is?”

“Well, I was rid­ing my bike and he was on the side­walk on his Big Wheels trike, but when I turned around and looked again, he was gone.”

I was cer­tain that Mat­tieBoo was out there on the cir­cle and #1Son just didn’t see him. So I went out to the garage and told Big­Bob to go out on the dri­ve­way and see where Mat­tieBoo was.

“I don’t see him,” was the response.

And then I felt it for the first time. That sink­ing feel­ing. Deep in my stom­ach. I felt a scream ris­ing up from the inner­most recesses of my brain, but sti­fled it.

“Well, he has to be out there. He went out with #1Son and I told him to stay on the circle.”

“I don’t see him, but I’ll go look.” With that, Big­Bob hopped into his car, leav­ing my Camry with oil drip­ping into a pan under it, and took off. I was con­fi­dent that in a few sec­onds, he would be back, and Mat­tieBoo would come ped­dling down the side­walk with the sun bounc­ing off that ugly green hel­met with the big smil­ing face of a tur­tle on top.

Instead, Big­Bob came back alone. And that sink­ing feel­ing was slowly giv­ing way to full-fledged, oh-my-freakin’-god-where-is-my-child? panic.

I had not got­ten dressed yet that morn­ing. I was going to fin­ish the pack­ing while Big­Bob read­ied the car. Then we were both going to shower, dress, throw the kids in the back seat and hit the road, arriv­ing in Pismo Beach just in time for din­ner and some evening play time in the hotel pool.

So I threw on my really unat­trac­tive, but totally com­fort­able, fuzzy fuch­sia bathrobe and headed out­side. I no longer cared that the neigh­bors might see me with my hair askew and dis­cover what kind of schmatta I put­tered around my house in.

I couldn’t drive my car since there was no oil in the engine, so Big­Bob took off again in his car to search the adjoin­ing streets, while I walked up and down the cir­cle, hop­ing against hope that lit­tle green hel­met would round the corner.

I con­tem­plated call­ing the police, fig­ur­ing that at 10:00 a.m. Mon­day morn­ing in liv­able, lov­able Lodi, they were prob­a­bly just sit­ting around the donut shop gos­sip­ing and they may as well come help look for Mat­tieBoo. By this time, he had been miss­ing a good 30 min­utes and my bathrobe was soaked with my cold sweat, I was breath­ing rapidly and shal­lowly, felt dizzy and thought I might pass out, but knew I couldn’t give in to the effect my fear was hav­ing on my body. I had to find Mat­tieBoo. My baby.

So there I was with the cord­less phone in my hand, ready to dial 9–1-1, pac­ing up and down the cir­cle, call­ing out, “Mat­tieBoo!” when the next door neigh­bor, a mid­dle schooler, came home with some of his friends. He instantly knew some­thing was wrong. “Did you see Mat­tieBoo on your way home?” I asked him. “No,” but he and his friends took off imme­di­ately to join in the search. A few min­utes later, they were back. “We can’t find him.”

Nau­sea set in. The world was spin­ning. I really thought I was going to lose it.

Big­Bob came back again and he was pale. He was pan­ick­ing, too.

“You’d bet­ter call the police. I can’t find him any­where, but I’m head­ing out again.” He named the streets he had searched, includ­ing the next cir­cle over, but planned to retrace his steps. After all, if he was out there on his Big Wheels, he was a mov­ing tar­get. And if he wasn’t there because some­one had taken him …

I refused to think about it.

Just then I heard sirens on the main thor­ough­fare a few blocks away. They sent a shiver down my spine the likes of which I have never expe­ri­enced before or since. “Oh, God … please don’t let those be for Mat­tieBoo.” A vision of that hideous green hel­met lying in pieces on the busiest street in town flashed before me and I sum­mar­ily ban­ished it.

With­out my car, I was pow­er­less to do any­thing but keep pac­ing and call the police to assist. The dis­patcher was pro­fes­sional, sym­pa­thetic and reas­sured me that an offi­cer would be along shortly. “I’m sure he’s just got­ten lost and we will find him, safe and sound,” she said in a com­fort­ing, if utterly uncon­vinc­ing, tone.

It seemed like an eter­nity, but a few min­utes later, as I stood there will­ing my knees to hold me up, I looked down the street to see BigBob’s car round­ing the corner.

And in the front seat next to him, peek­ing up just above the dash­board, I could see some­thing very green — and excep­tion­ally beautiful.

I will never for­get his lit­tle face when he smiled at me through the win­dow of the car as Big­Bob pulled into the dri­ve­way. There was my Mat­tieBoo with that enor­mous hel­met encir­cling his gor­geous lit­tle bespec­ta­cled face. He was grin­ning from ear to ear.

The car had barely stopped when he hopped out and ran over to me, “Mom! I was rid­ing my Big Wheels and Daddy came and got me!” He had no idea how pan­icked I had been or why I was cry­ing uncon­trol­lably. I grabbed him and refused to let go, car­ry­ing him into the house. I went straight to my bed­room and flopped down on the bed, still squeez­ing him while Big­Bob got his Big Wheels out of the back of the car.

“Mom, why are you crying?”

“Because I was scared to death. Where were you? We’ve been look­ing and look­ing for you.”

“It’s ok, Mom,” he said, tak­ing both of my cheeks into his lit­tle hands. “I was on my way home. I wouldn’t leave you.”

Just then Big­Bob came in. “Where did you find him?”

“Oh, he was just rid­ing along, com­pletely uncon­cerned. When I pulled up, he told me, ‘I’m try­ing to get home, Dad.’” He had gone out onto the busy street and ended up on the next cir­cle over.

Iron­i­cally, he had been rid­ing around and around that cir­cle, try­ing to get back onto ours. But the first few times Big­Bob drove through that adja­cent cir­cle look­ing for him, he was on the oppo­site side and did not hear Big­Bob call­ing him. The same thing must have hap­pened when #1Son and the other boys rode their bikes over to that cir­cle to search for him. Finally, Big­Bob got lucky, end­ing up on the same side of the cir­cle at pre­cisely the same moment as MattieBoo.

I let him go back to play­ing with his brother. They were both aware that I was upset, but com­pletely obliv­i­ous, of course, to the extent of my dis­tress or their father’s. I made them stay in the house the rest of the morn­ing while I fin­ished pack­ing, Big­Bob com­pleted the oil change, and we fin­ished ready­ing to begin our vaca­tion, dur­ing which I never took my eyes off either of my babies.

Hav­ing learned his les­son about the neigh­bor­hood geog­ra­phy, Mat­tieBoo never again left the cir­cle with­out my permission.

There have been other moments since then when I have got­ten a sink­ing feel­ing in my stom­ach, but, thank­fully, none exactly like the one I expe­ri­enced that day.

Orig­i­nally pub­lished August 25, 2007.

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