This morning I went shopping with my neighbor. We wanted to buy holiday clothes for our kids. In one of the stores while we were busy sifting through clothes, suddenly my friend’s 2 and ½ year old crawled out of her stroller and scuttled away. Before my friend could realize, junior had vanished! We kept screaming at the top of our voices, let the staff know, spread the word among the customers. Within a few minutes all three floors had been paged, the security had been alerted and the entire store was running helter skelter calling out her name. But there was no response, not even a whimper. Finally after 15 nightmarish minutes one of the customers appeared, carrying her in his arms. Phew!! Those were probably the longest 15 minutes of Sowmya’s life.

Lesson – don’t wait for the terrible two syndrome. Get yourself a safety leash for your toddler. They’re little, therefore hard to find in a public place.

Flashback

During this entire episode I kept thinking of the day when my mom and I were traveling from
Madras to Bangalore by train. Since my mom walks slowly I walked faster so I could find space to keep our bags. I went in, looked for our seat numbers and arranged our bags underneath the seats. I sat at the window waiting for her. But couldn’t see her. Five minutes later there was still no sign of her. I started panicking. Train stations in India are crazy and even chaotic. I asked my co-passenger to watch my baggage and went out looking for her. I ran from one end of the train to the other, but simply could not find her. Where did she go?? At the time we did not have cell phones. I went back to our seats, but she hadn’t reached. I heard the first whistle. I ran out again, on the verge of tears. Suddenly I saw a short, grey haired lady in a white saree walking towards me from a distance. “Where were you? I’ve been looking for you everywhere!!” she said. All I  could do was smile. We were both looking for each other in a busy railway station in India teeming with thousands of people during a festival time. We hopped in and the guard whistled a last time. It’s a miracle that we reached Bangalore the next day as scheduled.

Yes, when parents get old, you have to take care of them like you take care of your kids.

Lesson – when traveling with your old parent, make sure you have am adult safety leash - a cell phone. And make sure it’s on. (And that’s a story for a different day.)