One day the son of a friend of my mother’s didn’t come home from school. The child was finishing third grade. Nothing seemed to suggest trouble until the evening and his parents weren’t worried. So be it. It happens. When it got dark, they started running around the yard, looking for the boy, scolding him in their hearts for disobedience. They thought of a punishment for him. When it got quite dark, they decided to go to the police for help. As it turned out, no one had noticed him.
Again we searched doorways, attics, checked basements, looked into manholes. But he was nowhere to be found. During the move, our mother still thought that a miracle would happen. That he’d show up. Safe and sound. I was too young at the time to realize the full extent of his loved ones’ grief. Even mine had become afraid. My mother took me to school every day now. My grandfather brought me back. I only walked in the yard with adults. Never by myself.
Even though I was a little girl then, I was terribly indignant. I thought nothing was going to happen to me. Most likely the boy would never be found. I understood that, but for some reason it didn’t scare me at all. There were no such things as maniacs back then. When the adults watched TV shows on TV, they were discussing some kind of murderous camp counselor. And one of my neighbors, Anna Petrovna, whispered to my mother about some story that had happened in the maternity ward, only I, being a child, did not understand everything.
I personally had only one version of what had happened. What else could have happened to that boy, except that he had been stolen by gypsies? I couldn’t even imagine that there had been an accident. It was just stolen, period. And all was well with him, only somewhere far away.
After a while I forgot all about that story. It was only when my children grew up and started going to school that I began to realize that even though the distance was close – only a few hundred meters, and the path went through a clearly visible area – it would walk that distance without me! And then I felt bad…
I immediately remembered the incident with the missing child. And I took it in a different way. The tragedy of that situation came to me. The boy is gone! He’s gone! His parents didn’t keep him safe. And now there’s nothing that can be done. And then I remembered my thoughts, the gypsy, and realized that he could have drowned, fallen into the pond, into the river. And no one helped him get out. Would I be able to keep my daughter safe?
When I tell my daughters that danger can come from even the most familiar people, they only roll their eyes and laugh. They don’t believe that anyone could do anything, do any harm. It is true, the eldest already looks at it more consciously, but the younger nine-year-old is stubborn and assures me that I am paranoid.
Or starts telling me what her actions would be if someone suddenly attacked her. I try to convince her that there’s nothing she can do, only does anyone believe me? Not a bit.
And in these moments I immediately think of myself at her age. I guess it’s a characteristic of the purely childlike psyche to take everything so lightly. Children don’t understand that death is forever. And no one is safe from it. It’s everywhere. They climb on old pipes, abandoned buildings, grab at wires, pick up kittens from trees – it’s all easy.
When you start telling children about the dangers, they listen at first, sometimes nod, some even agree, but no one fully understands anything. I don’t care what it takes! They live in their own illusionary world. They think they’re invincible.
This story comes to mind because yesterday something similar happened close to us. Though not as tragic. A boy of about 7 years old went missing from his front yard. He was walking around his yard and disappeared. He just disappeared like he vanished into thin air. And the fence is high, and the gate is locked. And no one came in. And two dogs in the yard. And he’s gone! Disappeared! And the gate was open.
Fortunately, one of the neighbors saw that the child opened the gate himself and walked away in the direction of the school. They even shouted something to him, offered him something to play with, but he said he would be back soon.
A few hours later, the boy was found visiting a friend who lives on the other side of town. They were passionately playing something, while half the city was combing all the neighborhoods and parks, looking in holes and all.
The grandmother of the boy who had sheltered the fugitive was very surprised that such a fuss had been made. After all, she sincerely believed that the child had asked his elders…
On the one hand, everything ended well. Only if you believe the statistics, then every year more than 10,000 children go missing. Half of them are schoolchildren. Of course, the numbers change from year to year. And looking for missing children is very difficult. No one knows what happens to them and where they end up. I don’t even want to think about it…
You can’t be with a child 24 hours a day. And a child’s life can come to an end at any moment. So can an adult, by the way. When that schoolboy disappeared, his grandmother was hospitalized with a heart attack. And none of this could have happened. If the boy hadn’t left without asking.
