A Little Boy and Second Chances
Sometimes when an entire community is thrown into turmoil because of the fear of a missing child, we hope and pray for a safe return. When the child is found, everyone rejoices and feel like G-d has given us a second chance. Second chances to me mean that we get to reflect on how to go forward, after breathing a big sigh of relief. We get to move forward with happiness and gratitude.
The messages and emails came quickly, sending shocks all over our community. A little boy was missing and a search was started. The post Sunday night read chillingly, “Missing Person: Last seeen approx 8:00 PM on the 300 N. Orange block…” And further details such as age of child, and what he was wearing were noted. Photos of the cute smiley boy were posted on social media and various whatsapp groups. The flyers and whatsapps were spread around and tehillim (Psalms) groups were set up by various members of our community.
I shared the news with a friend, suggesting we both say tehillim for the safe return of the boy. We traded back and forth stories of our own kids having been missing. I told her the scary time when my son once got lost at the San Diego zoo many years ago, and turned himself in at the Lost and Found. My friend shared how her own grandson had once been missing, Hatzala (emergency community paramedics) started a search and the boy was found in a closet sleeping under a pile of clothes. What a relief.
We both prayed for a happy ending for this little boy and said good-bye to each other so we can pray. I thought for a second of sharing the possiblity that the boy was somewhere in the house, but dismissed it as something so silly and obvious and continued on with my prayers.
About 90 minutes after the phone call with my friend, I received a message “FOUND” in my inbox. Soon, the news spread, yes, the boy was found. Thank G-d. There were videos posted of the family and community celebrating. Hundreds had turned out to help search, along with helicopters hovering around the sky.
And then someone shared: “The boy was found in a closet under a pile of clothes?” Apparently, bloodhound dogs were sent around the house and area, and they smelled the boy and found him. My first reaction when hearing that was how ironic that the same happy ending happened to this boy as happened to my friend’s grandson.
And later I learned that others have had similar experiences with their children and grandchildren who were found sleeping under beds, and in other hiding places in the house.
What started out as something very scary ended with a simple solution. I recalled that when my friend had shared with me that possiblity, that I had refrained from calling the police or other authorities to suggest they look in the house.
Could be they had already looked. Could be they didn’t need my suggestion and that it was meant to be for this child to be found after two or more hours of being missing (Probably felt like an eternity for the family).
But still, how many times in a day do we have a strong intuition about something, and we don’t bring that idea to the fore of our consciousness and we don’t act upon it? How often does something happen and we think “Oh, I thought of that, I should have shared, but I thought I was wrong or misinformed?”
I spoke afterward to one of my friends and she too said that she thought of sharing that the child would possibly be under a bed, but she didn’t want to feel silly. We all didn’t follow our intuition and take the next right step (call or text the authorities to give a tip) because of feeling silly. That feeling totally resonated with me.
Often we get flashes of insight throughout the day and we push the feeling aside. We move on autopilot and ignore the wisdom of our insights. I have found that there were times that I acted against my intuition and regretted it later on. And there have been other times that I’ve followed my own instincts even though others told me otherwise, and things worked out well for me. From small acts of making a single phone call to get things rolling to larger steps of taking a career path or taking risks, intuition is that little voice inside of us that tells us what feels right.
The most important thing is that this boy was found. And it really doesn’t matter – at the end of the day – who or what or how he was found. But what does matter that each one of us takes our responsiblity seriously. Our thoughts are important, our ideas are valuable, and there are no stupid questions. Ask questions, give input, and come forward with your ideas when you sense them pushing to the forefront.
You just never know when your idea, no matter how silly it seems to be, may be the one that could bring back a missing child sooner.