<p>Okay, I am a day late and a dollar short as usual but I’d threatened to tell the Mother’s Day Horror Story yesterday and then got distracted beating my yard into reluctant submission and changing out the water in the hottub (which suddenly looked like homeless folks had used it for a bath while I was at work : ( ) (so much for pajamas and movies.)</p>
<p>So my personal best and worst Mother’s Day ever was in 1998. At the time, I was a single/divorced Mom, and holidays most often ended up just with McSon and me finding ways to entertain ourselves. One of our favorite passtimes was exploring the trails at a nearby nature preserve, which usually took us a few hours to traverse. McSon, 6 at the time, was a pretty compliant/easy-going kid. And cautious. Never had to tell him not to touch a stove, run out in a street, or get down from a tree. But he was, and is, a daydreaming dawdler bar none. </p>
<p>It was a crisp, sunny afternoon after a particularly wet week prior. We parked the “BatmoJeep” at a secluded entrance to one of the trails, and as usual, I locked my purse and cell phone (yes, I did carry one then, as I was a reporter) in the car. Off we went to explore nature in this lovely oak savannah, densely under-storied forest.</p>
<p>Neither of us ever figured out how it had happened, but about an hour into our walk, I suddenly noticed that McSon was no longer “bringing up the rear” as he usually did. Daydreaming dawdler that he is, he would frequently stop and investigate all manner of flora and fauna, but would yell for me to wait, or I would turn and notice and stop.
In fact, somehow McSon was nowhere in sight. So I waited. And waited. And finally started to panic. I back tracked. I took the last minor trail branch by the river (heart in throat). Then I took the upper trail. Then I went back and examined the river extensively. No McSon. By this time I was screaming like a banshee, although simultaneously shocked it was possible to have become separated and thinking this was all very surreal. I debated hiking the hour back to the car to get help, but was terrified to leave him in the event he’d fallen or otherwise needed immediate attention – assuming, all the while, somehow I would find him any minute. Next I found my way to the pond, which had a board walk and was usually more populated. But by this time, it was supper time, and normal people were not traipsing around a nature preserve. I circled or traveled every trail that I believed he could have possibly gotten onto from the trail we were on. No McSon anywhere. By this time, the sun was very low, and several hours had literally passed. I was crying my heart out and didn’t know what to do. The one area that I hadn’t searched that I knew of was very dense and boggy – and under about 3 or more feet of water due to flooding. I was wearing a long denim skirt and walking sandals. I hiked up my skirt and waded into it, horrified that I would find my little boy drowned, that I’d brush up against his little body in the bog. I can’t really explain what my brain was doing by this point. I know that it hurt to yell, but that I was still yelling. I was flooded with the guilty sense that proper “families” never had this problem, this lonely lone-adult phenom. If I hadn’t left his dad, there’d have been someone to go for help. The sun is actually starting to SET now, and I am realizing I will not even be able to see to get myself OUT of the bog, let alone find him. I realize that if he’s in here, the bog, that it’s too late and something inside me starts to fold in on itself. Exhausted, waist-deep in the mud and water, I lean back against a tree and be as still as I can, praying as hard as I can. And then I hear him. Crying. Calling me. But from the EAST, not the west, where the bog and the mud and the freezing cold water that I’ve been wading around in for the last dregs of the light lie.
I am elated, uplifted, even more adrenalin-fueled to get to him, to stop his fear, and it moves me through the muck, which is no small feat, as now I am stumbling, numb, and falling frequently from exhaustion. Of course, I am yelling too, telling him to stay where he is so I can follow his voice. </p>
<p>I get to him and there he is, up high on a tree stump, not far from where our paths first diverged. There I am, mud caked, soaked, and although he’s only six, he’s looking at me through his sobs in a way that says “What the heck happened to YOU. I’m the one who was lost!”</p>
<p>After fruitless searching, he’d finally figured out how to get back to the area where we’d diverged. He used the river as a guideline. A couple of times, he’d thought he’d heard me, but then thought he was imagining it (he has auditory processing disorder – the birds would compete). He then reasoned that I wouldn’t be able to hear him unless he got up as high as possible to yell. And indeed, it was that last piece of reasoning that made the difference, that did allow me to hear him.</p>
<p>I have truly never been so happy to see someone, anyone, ever in my entire life, and I likely never will be again.</p>
<p>That was my best and worst Mother’s Day ever. So whether he pulls a shtick like this year, where he ends up playing live on a radio show and DOESN’T CALL ME TO TELL ME (or wish me a happy mother’s day) that morning because he slept in, and I find out about the radio show on facebook, then listen, then while listening he says: “And above all else, I owe everything to my Mother, who’s awesome, and if she’s listening, Happy, Happy Mother’s Day” (okay, so he’s 1500 miles away, on some little northern radio station – and he didn’t call, so why the heck WOULD I be listening…)</p>
<p>…Even when he pulls flaky (but sweet) crap like that on Mother’s Day, I always secretly know that my one true Mother’s day gift and the only one that matters was finding him that day in the forest!</p>
Figured that they hadn’t listened to me at all! Luckily my boss (a guy) put them in water – still a bit wilted but I managed to salvage most of them this morning by cutting the ends, changing the water and adding in the perservative. I sent a thank you email to D and S this morning. S just informed me that I would have another bouquet delivered tomorrow that is was the companies screw up. Guess they do listen occassionally. :)</p>
D1 wants a cute way to ask people to be in their wedding. Any ideas???</p>