Clean up on aisle. . .

With all the medication this family takes, we are constantly at the drug store picking up prescriptions. Yesterday was no different.

I took the kids to Rite Aid and after we picked up and paid for our medicine, I decided to peruse the aisles with Miss Emily following close behind. I'm on a mission for nail polish and decide to let her wander near me. Every 30 seconds or so, I would call out her name to get her 20. We did this for maybe 15 minutes when she all of the sudden, stopped answering me.

I thought, she must have ventured out of ear shot. So I move around and keep calling her. Still no answer. I think where can she be, she isn't answering me. This isn't like her. She's not brave enough to lose me. She wouldn't be hiding from me. Where is she? She must have been taken. No way. That's not what this is.

Then I think a little more seriously, we are right next to the front entrance. How hard would it be for someone to grab her hand and walk out the door?

Panic sets in a little more. I ask for help. I can't find my daughter, do you have CODE ADAM ?

It's been perhaps 10 minutes now. I have the entire pharmacy looking for her. Patrons are helping me manage Everett, looking outside for her, clerks are checking all the exits, bathrooms and video surveillance. I take a breath and decide this is real enough for me to have to call the police. I can not logically come up with any other explanation for her disappearance than that she has been taken away from me. And I want her back now!

The police arrive in a matter of seconds. 3 squad cars all at the entrance to the store. I walk right up to them and answer their questions. What does she look like, what was she wearing. . .

As I'm trying to believe that this is really happening, I notice a store manager over by the clothing rack (Yes, drug stores sell clothing). She sees something and parts the clothing to reveal my little girl standing inside amongst the clothes with an expectant smile on her face.

"Mommy, I was playing hide and seek from you!"

"EMILY!!!"

I was so relieved/angry/embarrassed/anxious/relieved/ashamed.

I made her apologize to the police and store management for wasting everyone's time. An officer stopped me right there and said: "It's not a waste of time, it's a happy ending."

I cried, and the women who had been trying to comfort Everett and I when we were at our worst were crying with me. We all had lots of hugs (with total strangers) and every one slowly got back to their day, including us.

I won't be leaving Emily to wander from me in the store again any time soon. She will always be by my side.

I struggled to help her understand the gravity of the situation, or what could have been. When it occurred to me that I needed to involve the police it was as if my day splintered into all these different possibilities. The rest of the day I was in this fog of what I might be doing had she really been taken.

Whenever I spoke to her about it, she would talk about how she was trying to make me laugh and it didn't work. We talked a lot about it. Finally last night as I was putting her to bed I told her I wanted to pray to God, and that I needed her to listen to my prayer and think about it. I prayed aloud thanksgiving for her safety, that she was only hiding and not really taken and I thanked God for giving me such a beautiful daughter to love. When I was finished to said to me: "Mommy I'm going to pray to God too, and I need you to listen because it's important."

I'm listening. She says: "Dear God in Heaven, Thank you for helping me to find Mommy, and thank you for no stranger taking me away from Mommy, and thank you for making me safe. Amen."