The most terrifying thing is to feel abandoned and lost and alone.
I was sitting on the hill outside my kindergarten classroom. The school bus had left with its collection of passengers. Among the ocean of parents arriving to pick up their kids, my own mother was nowhere to be seen.
With each passing moment, I became convinced that either she had forgotten me, or something terrible had happened to prevent her arrival. Tears streamed down my cheeks and my arms gripped my knees for what felt like an eternity of desertion.
That is how my mother discovered me. In reality, she was there a mere five minutes late. But in my five-year-old world, I had been lost and now was found. She immediately understood my terror, and enfolded me in her arms.
Even now, as an adult removed from that childhood moment, I remember the pure joy of being rescued, embraced, and claimed.
I was sitting on the hill outside my kindergarten classroom. The school bus had left with its collection of passengers. Among the ocean of parents arriving to pick up their kids, my own mother was nowhere to be seen.
With each passing moment, I became convinced that either she had forgotten me, or something terrible had happened to prevent her arrival. Tears streamed down my cheeks and my arms gripped my knees for what felt like an eternity of desertion.
That is how my mother discovered me. In reality, she was there a mere five minutes late. But in my five-year-old world, I had been lost and now was found. She immediately understood my terror, and enfolded me in her arms.
Even now, as an adult removed from that childhood moment, I remember the pure joy of being rescued, embraced, and claimed.
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