What a day

The day started out wonderfully, sunny and hot, very rare for Hamburg. A group of us decided to meet at the beach by our house and let the kids play in the cool water. Aubrie and her friend Leoni were playing together nicely. Kaitlan was soaking up some rays... Then, suddenly, I couldn't see Aubrie and Leoni any longer! I scanned the beach for 5 minutes then started broadening my search. After 10 minutes my friend DeEtte started helping me look. I checked by the lighthouse, by the car parking lot, the cafe, the pier, the neighboring dog-beach while DeEtte walked into the woods a bit and was hollering for them. After 30 minutes we began to ask strangers on the beach if they had seen our 2 girls. After 40 minutes the 4 of us in the search party began to get seriously concerned and we decided to phone the police. As I'm attempting to make the phone call I'm realizing the gravity of the situation. Aubrie is missing. Thoughts of other missing children are running through my head. Suddenly as the nice stranger is trying to translate for me to the police, DeEtte shouts out "I see them!". I ran to them to see for myself but my feelings suddenly changed from worried, frustrated, and tearful to anger. I held Aubrie's arm and bent down to explain how frustrated I was with their bad choice to wander off. I didn't want to let go of her arm, she was here with me, she can't wander off and she can't be kidnapped if I keep a good grip of her. I thought a really tall tower would be nice to have for her. Maybe that's where the idea of them came from-fair maidens who's parents didn't want them to wander off again or let them be around others who might hurt them. How does one raise kids in this world without a tower? Alas, protection can't come at the cost of growth. I know my kids have to grow up and experience all that life has to offer- both the joy and the pain. I hope I can continue to keep track of them, nurture them, provide for needs and a few wants and teach them all that I can before they grow their strong wings of independence where no tall tower would ever be able to contain them.



As a follow up to the whole ordeal, I had told Aubrie that since I had to phone the police she was going to have to tell them why she wandered off without telling her mother where she was going. This put some of the fear into her that I was hoping for. I wanted her to not just say sorry and be done with it but really internalize how serious the situation was. So I decided to call Ted's brother Reed, who used to be a Salt Lake City police officer. He helped me to see the situation more rationally and we decided he would talk to her and be the loving uncle instead of the mean cop I was originally going for. It was great that Reed could be part of my "village" that day even though we live a continent apart.