an hour that will live in infamy

October 28, 2011

Normal morning, normal afternoon. I delayed nap a little later than usual because I was waiting for Abby to bring Luke and Allison over to take their naps here while she cleaned. At about 1:45 I put Peter, Lizzy, Luke, and Allison to bed. Peter and Lizzy were in their rooms, in their usual beds. Luke was on the couch in the basement and Allison was in the pack & play in my office/sewing room. Aaron was last, I put him to bed in my room at about 5 'till two. I gave him a stack of books to read which I normally do when I don't have the time to read him his "Five books, mom. Just five... okay four. Four books." and so on, while we negotiate. All this so Erin and I could have the privacy to attempt a Pilates workout video. At about 2:00, Tyson came home to change for P.E. He changed, said hello to Aaron, and left at about ten after. We waited for Tyson to leave before we turned on the tape.

After Tyson left, Erin and I began our Pilates. At some point during the video, Annie left and came back, having taken James for a walk. When Erin and I had completely exhausted ourselves and finished only about 2/3 of the workout, we concluded that our legs were rubbery enough and decided to call it quits.

I went in my room to change out of my sweats. It was right before 3:00. Aaron was not in my bed. This was not particularly alarming because I hadn't read to him until he fell asleep so it was normal that he would get out of bed and wander off to play. Unusual though, that I hadn't heard him go by the living room, which he would have had to do do if he had gone downstairs. I went downstairs to look for him. I looked in Joel and Annie's room, the playroom, the storage room, the boys' room, the living room, and all the nooks and crannies in those rooms. I looked under beds, behind furniture, under furniture, in closets, behind totes, and behind curtains in every room downstairs. Then I looked upstairs. By now I had told Annie that I couldn't find Aaron and all this time so far Erin had been looking too. He wasn't in the house. This had never happened before. I didn't want to panic. I'm not a panic kind of person. I also don't cry at weddings.

I went to the church to look for him. My next best guess was that he went down there to visit with dad or find his brothers. As I arrived at the church, school was just getting out but the side doors were still locked so I rattled the door until someone came and opened it. Mrs. Gritton came to see who was rattling the doors since apparently it's hard on the locks to do that. I can see why she was annoyed and any other time I would have been contrite but at the time I was thinking, "my son is lost and you're worried about me damaging the locks?!" I told her as I ran by that Aaron was lost and I was looking at the church for him. I found Ty, told him that Aaron was missing and then went home to look again.

At some point during the initial search Kelly Correll called me to see if she could drop off some clothes. I told her that Aaron was missing and then hung up on her. So rude! At this point Annie and Erin were tracing the route Annie had taken on her walk to see if Aaron had followed her. At church and outside Mrs. Gritton, Abby, Jennifer, Mrs. Pinne, and Tyson were searching.

I intercepted Tyson just as he was coming from searching in and around the church bus and told him that at some point we were going to need to call the police. He said to do it so I did. I called the police. All the time preceding the phone call I was constantly praying in my head that we would find him, that I was overreacting, that he was somewhere we just hadn't looked yet in the house but when I made that call, it all became real. Aaron was dead. I just knew it. I began to picture my life without him and I didn't like it. I hated it. He is a light. He is the kind of person you can't live without once you know him. He is beautiful. He is not my favorite but I have been accused of favoring him and at that moment I repented of that. I thought losing him was what I deserved for favoring him over my other children and that having him was just too good to last.

I called the police. Now it was real. Aaron was gone. While I was on the cell phone calling the police, I decided to stomp through the tall grass behind the playground where there is construction in the new subdivision. I thought maybe he would have thought the construction equipment was neat. All the while my eyes are roving back and forth over the tall grass, looking for his red sweatshirt. The 911 operator asked for my address. I drew a blank. I couldn't remember. All I could remember was the church address. I gave him the church address and then wasted what I thought was valuable time explaining to him what a parsonage is. After he got the address he asked what my emergency was. I told him I lost a child. To quote Henry, this is when things got "really real" to me. Child's age, height, last known whereabouts, eye color, hair color. Yikes. He said the police were on the way, to go back to my house to wait for them and to find a picture of Aaron to give the police. A picture. These are the pictures up at walmart, and on the tv, I thought. Aaron is a picture at walmart.

As I was walking back to the house, I saw Austen, Stephen, and Matthew on a "hill" in the neighboring farmer's soybean field. The "hill" is covered with tall grass and weeds. In looking at that picture, at those boys searching for my son, I had my most disturbing image yet; I saw in my mind Aaron, limp and bloody, discovered on that hill. I turned my head and walked to the house. By now I'm sobbing. When I got back to my house several people were congregated in the yard. Jennifer gave me a hug. Kelly was in the house. She kept touching me, telling me we'd find him, comforting me. I said, "I have to find a picture," and went into my office. Allison was still in there, no longer asleep since I had searched in there at least twice, all the while yelling Aaron's name. I went to a bookshelf where i knew there were some finished scrapbook pages that had pictures of the children on them. I looked through the pictures. Kelly was helping me, comforting me. She's a very comforting woman. I couldn't find a picture of just Aaron in the scrapbook pages so I crossed the room and looked in a drawer that I knew had several envelopes of developed pictures. I am alternately crying, hyperventilating, and criticizing myself, all the while being consoled by Mrs. Correll. I finally found a picture of Aaron. In this picture he is in a wading pool in the Gritton's back yard in Florida. Aaron and Nate or Eli, I can't remember, had gone outside to play and gotten into the wading pool which was filled with mud, bark dust, rain water, and dirty toys. Rebekah and I had both hurriedly gotten cameras before we got them out of the water and cleaned up because they both looked so surprised that what they were doing was wrong. Just as I found the picture, Tyson came down the hall and said to me, "Come on, the police are here."

As I was walking down the hall I said to my husband, "I need you to tell me you're not mad at me right now. It's really important for me to know you're not angry." He said nothing. I went outside. There were two police officers there. One of them approached me and asked me if I was the person who called, if I was the missing child's mother. He began asking about times. What time did I put him to bed, what time did Tyson leave, what time did Annie go on her walk, what time did I finish Pilates, what time did I notice he was gone, etc. I kept saying, "I had to have let him walk right by me, how did I not notice him leaving?" I could not get past the idea that I had terribly neglected my maternal duties if I was so absorbed in a video that I let a small child escape without even noticing! Then he asked for a list of all the adults who had access to the house. I had one streamer thought, that "oh no! He's going to think Annie did it!"

As I was listing all the people who had been in and out, Micah Correll and Henry ran out of the house. Micah shouted, "hey! we found him!" It didn't register with me. I looked up. They were coming out of the house and he wasn't in the house so I began to disregard them. Then I heard the other officer speak into his radio, "We got 'im," he said. I A) didn't trust Micah and Henry; and B) didn't want the search to be called off too soon so I said, "I'm not sure about that, wait a second." I had to see for myself. I followed them in. "He's over there," I was told. It seems like Abby or Tyson or maybe Mrs. Correll did see him before me so I finally began to hope but I still had to see for myself.

I looked. In the corner, under a desk and behind another desk, and behind a board/shelf that had been removed from a desk, there was a little white hand sticking out. It was Aaron's hand! I walked back into the hall. Both the police officers were there. "Was it him?" He asked. It was. I blubbered and gushed for a while then found myself exasperated, "He's so infuriating!" Someone laughed. I felt terrible. I felt like such a drama queen. Who calls the police for a missing child when the kid is in the next room over from where you put him down for nap??! I felt ridiculous. I admitted how foolish I had been to overreact and get everyone all riled up. The office was very reassuring. He told me that, "99.9% of the time this is what happens. The child has just hidden. The child is safe. You didn't overreact. You did the right thing." I was very reassured to hear this but I still do feel silly that I made such a big deal out of a four-year-old sneaking graham crackers and falling asleep. Yes, that's right. The whole things was because the boy had stolen a box of graham crackers and hidden to eat them and then fell asleep. That just about sums my boy up. He is so infuriating!

Update: Tyson later told me that as I was walking outside to speak to the police, that he had never felt more sympathy for me in his life as he did then. He said he knew that if Aaron was gone that I would feel guilty forever for losing him.