I’d been cleaning leaves out of the gutters on a recent Saturday morning when the police showed up at the house. They’d received a 911 call from my cell phone, which I’d left on top of my dresser in the bedroom. The caller hung up and no one answered when the dispatcher called back.

Christian!!!

Son #1 loves cell phones. He doesn’t have his own, so he grabs any he finds laying around and starts playing. Mine unfortunately has easy access to the “emergency call” button, so the local 911 dispatchers are getting to know us pretty well. Just in the past 6 months I’d guess he has done it at least five times, sometimes chatting with the dispatcher until we intervene.

And he doesn’t just call 911. Our friends, coworkers, and dozens of other people on our call logs have received random calls from a boy who is hard to understand. Those who know us and Christian laugh it off, but 911 dispatchers are a different story.

A few months ago, C rang up 911 and was babbling to the dispatcher when my wife walked into the room, scolded him, took the phone from him, and hung it up. She didn’t know he had called 911, and I answered when the dispatcher called back a couple minutes later.

When I explained what had occurred, she very sternly explained that it is concerning to the police when the caller hangs up, particularly when someone is yelling in the background. Fortunately, my explanation and sincere apology were enough to avoid a visit from Concord’s finest that day.

The Wanderer

The last thing I want to do is distract the police from their important work because of a phone-happy boy with special needs. Numerous times, in nearly every community where we have lived, that important work has involved searching for that same mischievous boy. You see, Christian likes to wander.

From the time he could walk, he’s wanted to explore. At four years old, on a chilly December Sunday morning, he and brother Ben were playing in the fenced back yard of our hillside home on the edge of Kennett Square, PA. After a little while, Ben came in, wandered around for a few minutes, then asked, “Where’s Christian?” Sarah and I bolted off the couch and ran out back to look for him, finding only an open gate.

We panicked. Sarah went into the house to see if he had come inside undetected, while I ran to the front of the house to search. I didn’t see him, so I ran around the neighborhood, down the hill to the usually busy road at the bottom and through yards, yelling his name. He was not inside, so Sarah called the police.

My mind was racing with worst case scenarios. I got in my car and began driving all around the neighborhood. As the minutes went by I became more and more panicked. We might never find him. Someone might have taken him. He’s probably scared to death. My heart was exploding and my adrenaline was raging.

Downhill All the Way

I went back home after about 10 minutes. Sarah had just gotten a call from the police. They’d found him… nearly a mile from the house.

He’d walked down the sidewalk to the road at the bottom of the hill, turned right and left town. He walked along the curvy road with no shoulder, a hill on his right and a wooded creek on his left, all the way to the next crossroad where a couple saw him and stopped. They called the police at about the same time we had.

In a few minutes the squad car pulled up in front of our house. Two young male officers got out and opened the back door. When C climbed out, Sarah broke down and ran to him. I held it together, but could barely speak to the police. We thanked them over and over.

Christian was all smiles, completely unfazed by the experience. He got to see new places, meet new people, and ride in a police car. What’s all the fuss?

I still think about that morning and how fortunate we were. He could have been hit by a vehicle. He could have fallen into the creek. He could have been taken by someone.

Thank God it was a Sunday morning and there was very little traffic on the road except for the kind couple who found him. I wish we could have thanked them personally.

From then on, I always confirmed that the gates were locked before letting the boys into the yard. We also have added multiple locks to exterior doors in each subsequent house, high enough that he couldn’t reach them. But doors are only so tall and kids grow so fast… and parents sometimes forget.

Exploring California

When Christian was almost five, we moved to Grover Beach, CA, into a nice neighborhood with a park just a block away. Within a few months, we met the local police. C loved that park, so at the first opportunity, the first open door, he went there… alone. Someone called the police and I got to the park at about the same time they arrived. I and they were not happy, but C was.

He flew the coop several times in the three years we lived there. We had become friends with another neighborhood family with young kids, so that is where he typically headed. A couple times he got sidetracked by an open vehicle parked on the street or an open garage door at a home along the way. We met several neighbors that way.

On one solo outing, he came across a group of women engaged in door-to-door ministry for a local church. They asked him where he lived and he pointed to our friends’ home, where he was headed to play with their kids. The ladies took him there and the babysitter had no idea who he was. He didn’t care. He walked through the door and the kids played while the babysitter called our friend, who then called us, knowing exactly who had invaded her house.

The Streak

Shortly after we moved north to Concord, CA, he hopped on his little trike, wearing just his undies and socks, and pedaled a few blocks across a busy road until the street turned sharply to the right. He didn’t want to turn, so he continued straight up a driveway, got off his trike and knocked on the door.

While I frantically searched the neighborhood, Sarah called the police. They had already gotten a call from the couple that lived in the house, so I headed there. C was happily sitting in a chair watching TV, while I got icy stares from the couple and a good talking-to from the police.

I suppose my calm demeanor and light scolding of the C-man masked my concern and increased theirs, but this had become fairly routine for us. I could have been angry and explained to him that he can’t wander off by himself, but he wouldn’t understand. It’s just another one of those things in our life that is hard for others to understand.

While C still wanders off from time to time, it’s much less frequent and we’ve learned a few things that make it more manageable. We still freak out, but we know his habits, we’ve marked his favorite destinations, and we have faith in the police and his guardian angel. We’re also looking for a good place to hide our car keys.