Hold my Hand

This story has a happy ending. Thankfully. Kel and I just returned from the local shops where we lost Patrick - again. This is totally distressing to parents and even though it has happened to me many times with my second born child, it never stops making me sick in the stomach. How can I lose a child of 9 years, so many times? I do not know. Patrick just seems to wander. He always has. He is not being naughty; he does not run away; and he doesn't wander off with people (God forbid). He just seems to go into his own world and I turn around and he is completely gone. Today was particularly distressing. We were standing outside a video shop looking at half-price DVDs. The rest of the shopping centre (except for the supermarket) was closed, being New Year's Day. We had all walked together to the video store, Kel and Bella went in but Pat and I stopped outside to look at the specials. I then said to him, "C'mon let's go inside". I walked in, conscious that Bella would already be tearing the inside of the store apart. I just assumed that Patrick followed me in. Five minutes later after we were browsing through the store, Kel asked where Patrick was. I said, he was in the store with us (I glanced outside and saw that he wasn't there and wrongfully assumed he had come inside). A couple of minutes later, Kel and I started worrying and began searching the store. He was nowhere to be found. We ran outside, and he was gone. We split up and the horror of everything that could possibly have happened to him filled our minds. Kel checked the car, I checked behind the shopping centre - terrified of what I might find - or not find. Kel ran inside to check the toilets and nothing. This truly does my head in. Eventually we found a very stressed and frightened young boy wandering in the centre. He assumed when I said "let's go inside", that I was talking about the shopping centre, when I meant inside the video store. Simple mistake, but enough to cause panic.

Normally when Patrick wanders, he does not even know he is lost, which makes him even more vulnerable - because he is not looking for us! Once my sister was looking after Patrick when he was 2 years old and he went missing at the busiest beach in our district. On one side was the ocean, on the other a busy road, playgrounds and probably a paedophile's paradise. He was gone for over 20 minutes and when I heard about it, I was physically sick. It was not my sister's fault, he just wandered off. Another time I was at my local Target store. It was peak shopping hours (on a Saturday morning) and I had been queuing up at the checkouts for about 15 minutes. Bella was just a newborn and was ready for a feed. There were people ahead and behind me. Patrick needed to go to the toilets desperately, so I asked Sam (who was 10) to take him. I gave him the following strict instructions: Hold Patrick's hand; Use the Parents' Room; tell him to wait for you until you are both finished and then come straight back. Patrick was 7. Needless to say, Patrick did not wait and then instead of waiting for Sam, assumed he had gone off without him. So Patrick just disappeared and probably intended to come back to the checkout, but got distracted and ended up at the other end of the shops. I was hysterical. About 15 minutes had passed. Sam returned, distressed. Bella was starving by this time and screaming at the top of her lungs. Terrified that I would never see him again and at the same time, convinced I was going to kill him when I found him. After his description was read over the PA, he finally turned up. I sobbed and sobbed.

I keep telling myself he will grow out of this, but when?

The irony of this situation today, is that on the way to the shops this morning I asked Patrick to hold my hand. He said he was too old to my hand anymore. Ugh.

Torture.