Almost Lost

This is in response to the StoryWorth question: Did you ever get lost as a child?

I don’t recall ever being lost as a child but I remember one time worrying that I would be lost.

When I was a child, kindergarten had not been made public yet. I attended kindergarten but it was a private kindergarten and was held in a little church a few miles away. We never had much money other than for the necessities and I am sure that private kindergarten did cost money. I am so fortunate that my parents felt that kindergarten for me was one of those necessities.

Since kindergarten was private there was no school bus to pick me up and drop me off. The church was a few miles from where we lived, so I could not walk to school like I did for first and second grade which was just up the road a few yards. So, Mom usually took me to kindergarten and my cousin Denny, who was more like an uncle, would pick me up.

I remember one time on the way to school I experienced a bit of drama. Mom was driving me to school and my younger cousin, either Kathy or Debby, was going along for the ride. I was sitting next to the door and my cousin was sitting between Mom and I in the front seat. That was back in the day of wide and roomy bench seats. I am not sure if cars back then even had seat belts but if they did, we didn’t use them.

Well, my cousin had her arm stretched across my lap and was holding onto the armrest. We came to the end of Knox Avenue and stopped at the stop sign before turning left onto Third Street. When Mom took off and turned left, the door opened and I slid right out onto the middle of the road. I think that my cousin must have accidentally opened the door when she grabbed onto the armrest.

When the car took off, out I fell. I was just oblivious enough to think that Mom would not notice that her daughter was no longer in the front seat. Fortunately, Mom did notice, stopped, picked me up and we went back home. I think that I may have had a bit of road burn on my hip, but other than that, I was fine. I am not sure if I made it to school that day or not?

Well, that wasn’t the story that I meant to tell but at least it was related to kindergarten.

So, my cousin Denny would drive by my kindergarten and pick me up each day. One day, all of the children were outside waiting for their rides but there was no Denny. I waited and waited as more and more classmates got into cars and left for home but I was still there. Finally, I was the last one there. I was afraid that I had been forgotten and I did not want anyone to know that I had been forgotten. I hid behind the marquis in front of the church so that no one could witness my humiliation at being forgotten by my family.

 

 I hid behind the marquis as my teacher climbed into her car to drive to her home. I made sure to stay hidden as she pulled out of the driveway of the church. She left never knowing that I was still there. I should have gone to her and told her that Denny hadn’t come yet and she would have stayed there with me until he did. In my mind though, Denny wasn’t coming because he had completely forgotten me! Why Mom and Dad would probably not even notice that I wasn’t home and go about their day as though everything was fine.

It was in this forlorn, dejected state of mind that I began walking down the drive of the church, hopefully toward home. I hoped that I could remember how to go…but what if I couldn’t?! As I walked down the drive, my eyes began to burn and my worrying, forgotten little heart was about to burst.

Before I had even gotten to the end of the driveway, here comes Denny!  He asked me what I was doing and I told him that I was going to walk home since I thought that he had forgotten me.

I usually got into the front seat with Denny to ride home, but that afternoon, I insisted on getting in the backseat as I did not want him to see my tears. After all, I was a big girl.

So after I got in, Denny pulls off to take me home and explains that he was just running a bit late but he had not forgotten me. He reassured me that he would never forget me and told me that I should have stayed with my teacher until he came. If he ever ran late again, I should never try to walk home but I should wait with my teacher because he WOULD be there. Then, after glancing at me in his rearview mirror, he asked me if I was crying. I told him that I was just wiping my eyes because something was in them. That really wasn’t a lie because there had been tears in them.

So that is the story of how I thought that I had been forgotten and how I came close to being really, really lost. Even now, I don’t pay attention to how to get to places when someone else is driving. I am certain that I would have never remembered how to get home. Thanks God that Denny came before that happened.

Denny was never late again and I eventually graduated from kindergarten with a Bachelor of Rhymes degree.

All is well that ends well!