The Fugitive

Whoa, two in a row!  ;)

A few weeks ago, I decided to make some lovely chicken and wild rice soup for dinner, but I needed a few things to make it.  Luckily, we live within walking distance (half a block) of a wonderful little grocery store.  I grabbed my shopping bag, Jameson wanted to come too, and off we went.  Jackson stayed behind with Randy.

We got what we needed, paid and walked past the courtesy booth on the way out.  I hear the cashiers talking to a child, saying, "Is your mommy shopping in the store?"  And I thought, "How sad, someone's kiddo is lost."

Jameson and I walk down the street toward home and see Randy and a lady I didn't know running up the street.  Randy yells, "Do you have Jackson?"  I said, "No, why?" I could feel the panic starting to rise in my chest.

Turns out Jackson decided he wanted to come with us and opened the door and left on his own.  The woman with Randy found Jackson walking down a very busy street toward the store.  He was barefoot, naturally, because what story do you hear like this on the news actually shows a child fully clothed?  The woman thought that Jackson had left the store, so she took him into the store and then went walking down the street just in case that's not where he came from.  That's when she ran into Randy who had realized the door was open and Jackson was gone.

I went running back into the store and see Jackson still behind the courtesy booth playing with the phone (maybe trying to phone home?) and the two cashiers still pumping him for info and attempting to get him to take a sucker.  I immediately burst into tears, Jackson looks up at me like, "Hey Mom, this phone is pretty cool, but these chicks won't take no for an answer on the sucker."

The cashiers tell me that they had to call the police because they didn't know when Jackson had come from.  They knew him because we live half a block from a pretty cool grocery store, we're in there almost daily, they just didn't know where we lived.

The officer shows up and starts asking questions, name, rank, serial number, how did he get out, when did you know he was missing, how did he not know to leave, etc.  Then the kicker, "You know, you picked a really bad time of day for this to happen."  Really?  Really?  I made a mental note to talk to Jackson later that escaping earlier in the day would be more convenient for the PD.  Because to the average person, Jackson looks "normal" the officer kept questioning about Jackson's special needs like he almost didn't believe us.  Why would I lie about something like that?  Then, Jackson had had enough and starting stimming at full volume.  DIT DIT DIT DIT while bucking to get down in Randy's arms.  The officer looked very uncomfortable and abruptly ended the interview.

We got home and all that *could have* happened started running though my head.  What if he would've been taken?  What if he got hit by a car?  And on and on.  I haven't cried so hard for so long in my whole life. 

I immediately ordered a tag for Jackson's shoe that has all of his important info on it from roadid.com.  They make great products that are reasonably priced. (Unfortunately, he won't wear a wrist or ankle bracelet, too sensory and the shoe tag wouldn't have helped a barefoot child...)  But, he's got it on at school and whenever we are in public, so if he makes a break for it, he's branded.  Randy made a visit to the PD to talk to them about our situation with Jackson and their response was, "Um, well, I guess just call us if you lose him again."  No preemptive action available.  I know other cities have some programs in place and I've been looking into more info on them.

So, that was the scariest day of my life.  Even more scary than the day we got Jackson's diagnosis.  Big lesson learned in a big way.

Object du Jour:  Plastic shapes and letters.