A Scare

Yesterday after I picked up the kids from school we took the bus to our new house in Zehlendorf. I needed to take a closer look at the bedrooms and take some measurements for furniture. I had brought the one meter paper tape measure I took from IKEA and I got to work measuring space for beds and sofas. The kids dashed upstairs to have another look at what would be their rooms, but quickly got bored in the empty house. I suggested they go down the street to the park and play until it got dark and they didn't need me to tell them twice. I hesitated a little to let them go alone, but people keep telling me that Berlin is safe and children are very independent here. I have seen kids no older than 5 or 6 riding the bus alone. And the park is only about 5 houses down a dead end street.

I went back to my measuring, moving from room to room. At some point I noticed that it was starting to get dark, and I was surprised the kids weren't home yet. I went downstairs and was putting on my shoes to walk down and retrieve them from the park when Carter came through the door. He asked if I would come to the park, they wanted to show me something. I told him no, that I wanted to finish what I was doing before it got completely dark, because some of the rooms don't have lights. (Germans take their light fixtures with them when they move. Most rooms in the house had a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling so there was at least something to turn on when you flip the light switch, but a few rooms didn't even have the bulb.) I asked Carter instead to please go get Haley because it was getting dark and I didn't want them in the park after dark. He came back a few minutes later and I said "Carter, where is your sister?" He said "She was on the zipline and I told her that you wanted her to come home." I said "Carter, don't just tell her to come home! Go back to the park and get her and bring her here."

I went back to my task again, but several minutes later Carter was pounding at the door. "Mom, I can't find Haley!" I put my shoes on and we walked briskly to the park. By this time it was mostly dark (darkness comes quickly here) and fog was rolling in. The park was dark and spooky. I called Haley's name loudly. No answer. She must have gone the wrong way; instead of walking up the street, she must have gone down the perpendicular sidewalk and walked to the left or right. We quickly walked in one direction calling her name, then the other. Maybe she didn't know which house was ours and passed it and was further down the street? We walked down our street past the house, calling her name. Nothing. Maybe she slipped by us and is back in the house? I went back in, calling for her. Silence. Now I am starting to get scared. Where could she be? How could she have gotten so far away that she can't hear us calling? Is she hurt? Did someone take her?

I ran back to the park, shouting for her. I went to the places I had looked before, but this time went farther in each direction. I went all the way to the busy street where we came from and went to the bus stop - maybe she had misunderstood and was waiting at the bus stop? No. I ran back past the park and stopped at the first street the sidewalk crossed. Should I run left or right? The street looked deserted. The size of Berlin began to scare me. She could be in any direction, and if she didn't know where she was then all the streets and houses would look alike. How was I going to find her? I needed help. Carter kept asking me to call Dan, but Dan was an hour away by public transit. He wouldn't be able to help. Carter said "Call the police!" I don't know how to call the police! But Carter did - 112 is the emergency number. I briefly considered "how will I communicate with them? what if they tell me it's not their job?" But I knew I needed to do something to get help. "Sprechen zie Englisch?" I asked the person who answered the phone. Nein. I tried to explain in halting German. "Meine Tochter. Sie ist sieben jahre alt. Sie spielt im park." (My daughter. She is 7 years old. She plays in the park.) I don't know how to say "She is lost" or "I can't find her" or "She disappeared" so I burst these things out in English, just as the tears came. The man understood enough to connect me with the police, to whom I repeated the same story. He then asked me where I was and I only knew the name of the street the house was on, not the major streets nearby. He told me to hold on and he was going to find someone who spoke better English. While I was waiting, I asked Carter to go back up the street and continue calling for Haley. A few moments later I heard sobs. She had heard him calling and had come running toward us. When the policeman came on the line I made him understand that I had found her. Haley said that, of course, she hadn't known which way to go when she left the park. She picked the wrong direction, and then got even more lost when she tried to return to the park. (Poor child must have my sense of direction.) It turns out she had gone to the street that parallels ours, had gone all the way to the next block, turned right, and was coming back up our street towards the park when she finally heard Carter calling. It sounds like it was quick, to read it here, but I'm guessing we looked for Haley for at least 15 minutes or more, and it seemed like an eternity.

We have been so careful to keep the kids right next to us in all the busy places we have gone...but I lost Haley on our own quiet street. I'm glad it ended well, and I won't let her go anywhere without me for a long time.