Let me clarify—we didn’t lose him in the traditional sense, as he wasn’t missing for days or even hours. It was likely around 40 minutes, but when you’re trudging through riverbeds and navigating small valleys while muttering a steady stream of expletives, time tends to blur. The group consisted of me, my wife, our spirited 11-year-old, and his less steady, still-developing 3-year-old brother. If you’ve ever attempted to keep a group of kids together—whether on a hiking trail, a beach, or even at home—you know how challenging it can be, especially with children of different ages.
We came upon a section that required some climbing, and our eldest son took the lead, leaving the three of us behind. It seems there was a bit of a miscommunication: When we said, “Wait for us at the top,” he interpreted it as, “Feel free to venture off alone into the woods, and please take the backpack with the water.”
This was not the first time he had wandered off. In fact, he has a bit of a reputation for getting lost. He tends to drift away, lost in a whirlwind of imagination and stories that often have little to do with his immediate surroundings.
Me: “Would you like some cereal?”
11-Year-Old: [pauses] “Which dragon from Wings of Fire do you think has the toughest armor—the MudWing or the IceWing?”
Me: [pauses] “So, Frosted Flakes then?”
I’ve had to search for him in stores, like Target, where he might wander off because a T-shirt caught his attention, or at a baseball game, lured away by the smell of hot dogs. During family bike rides on the beach, he would pedal far ahead until he became a mere dot against the sunset; we would place bets on how long it would take for him to realize he had left us behind. There was even a time when, at about four years old, he woke up in the middle of the night, ventured down the stairs, opened the back door, and wandered into the Carolina night for a good 15 to 20 minutes before the police found him. He’s an explorer, to say the least, but now that I reflect on it, I can’t help but feel anxious. Is this behavior normal?
So, when the friendly staff at the children’s museum bring my 3-year-old back, it’s less of a “Thank you for returning my son!” and more of a “Hey, Edna, how’s your back?”
To clarify, I don’t want to come off as negligent. Once my son was lost, he managed to keep his composure. He headed towards the park’s bridge entrance and ranger station, seeking directions from families he deemed trustworthy—because they had a 6-year-old with them. He even hung his food up so bears wouldn’t get it. Okay, maybe that part is fictional, but I had some confidence he could find his way back unless he accidentally fell into a ravine or was carried off by a bear, which seemed unlikely given his skinny frame. Kids are quirky, and they approach reality differently. I believe if we dropped him in the middle of an airport, he could find his way home to Indiana in a few hours, probably with a Cinnabon in hand. But ask him to put on his Little League uniform the right way, and you might end up with pants on backward.
While I do support his independence, I also treasure it. My upbringing was far more cautious, where my parents painted the world as a perilous place with countless dangers—tornadoes, traffic, swimming too soon after eating, and, let’s not get into the banana story. So, I tend to take a more balanced approach. If I had gotten lost in a state park at his age, I would have frozen in place until someone rescued me, like a ranger or perhaps Yogi Bear. When I asked my son how he knew which way to go, he said, “I memorized the map,” as I fumbled with my phone, frustrated that it lacked a signal in the dense Indiana woods.
This scenario and the lessons that come with parenting are tough to learn. “Relax,” the park map seemed to say while I anxiously scanned the trails. “Be at ease,” the trees whispered, though they don’t talk—maybe that was a hallucination. “Hey, watch where you’re going!” exclaimed a family I splashed while trying to navigate the river—sorry, folks.
He was fine. It didn’t take long for him to return. “Can you stay close?” he asked my wife when she found him first. “I was pretty sure Dad was going to lose it.” I didn’t lose it. Instead, I had a serious talk with him, took away his Minecraft privileges for a while, and then shared a light-hearted joke about the whole situation. Life went back to normal, and I felt a bit reassured about how he would manage when we weren’t around.
This article was originally published on June 2, 2015.
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