Lauren Denton
We recently had some friends over to our house for dinner, and the husband told us about how his mother, who lives at the beach, is a volunteer at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Fla.
Our family is intimately acquainted with the “airplane museum,” as we like to call it, and as soon as he mentioned her volunteering there, images flooded my mind — and Matt’s, too — from a summer afternoon eight years ago. It was not the first time we’d visited the museum or the last, but it was definitely the most memorable, and it made me ever so grateful for volunteers like our friend’s mom.
Anyone who has known our daughter Sela for any length of time is likely familiar with her adventurous and creative spirit. Since she was a toddler, she’s been incredibly curious about the world, and if something catches her eye, she goes to investigate. The result of all this curiosity is a deep appreciation for the small things in life that most of us don’t even notice. But when she was younger, this desire to follow the interesting things meant we often turned around to find she wasn’t where we expected her to be.
On this particular summer afternoon, Sela was not quite 4 years old. During a beach trip to Perdido Key, we headed to the museum for a respite from the blazing afternoon heat. We zigzagged our way through the main hangar bay to the second floor, where they had an exhibit featuring the Apollo space program. Winding around the replica of the lunar module and the splashdown capsules, I turned to show Sela something, but she wasn’t next to me. Expecting to find her just up ahead with her face pressed to the glass, peering at some small artifact, I kept walking through the exhibit, but I still didn’t see her. Matt and Kate were close by, so I told Matt I didn’t have Sela, and we both started looking. We weren’t frantic, but we were “walking with purpose.”
Twenty minutes later, there was still no sight of her. It may have been my imagination, but the crowds seemed to grow more dense by the second, and what were probably happy families just like ours began to look dangerous and suspicious. Fifteen minutes after that, Matt and I were practically running through the hallways, looking into every small space she may have wiggled into. I couldn’t help but notice all the many exit doors scattered around the space — likely to allow claustrophobic museum-goers to get a breath of fresh air, but in my mind they were all portals through which some wacko could, and probably had, taken my baby.
I clearly remember thinking, “Someone has to lock all those doors!” But short of yelling out in the middle of a crowded museum, I did the only other thing I could think of.
I don’t know why I didn’t do this right off the bat — probably some sense of “It’s fine, I can handle this” — but I remembered all the smiling faces of the volunteer docents, senior citizens who sat at the welcome desk just inside the front door, kindly directing visitors to the restrooms and answering all kinds of questions. Suddenly, I felt like they would know exactly what to do.
I arrived breathless at the desk — Matt and Kate just a little ways behind me — and barely managed to squeak out, “I’ve lost my 4-year-old.” The group of laughing docents gathered behind the desk — Why are they laughing? Don’t they know someone has run off with my kid?! — parted like the Red Sea and there was Sela, sitting on a stool, happily munching on a chocolate bar. All the tears I’d been holding back broke free, and as soon as she saw my tears, she started crying too. “I didn’t know if I’d see you again!” she cried. But then she was laughing and holding up the chocolate bar the docents had given her, and it was like the last 45 insane minutes hadn’t happened. At least for her.
One of the volunteers told me someone had seen her upstairs alone by the Apollo exhibit — probably seconds after I’d lost sight of her — and instead of taking off with her through an exit door like I’d imagined, they alerted the docents. One of them went up to Sela and asked where her parents were, and when she couldn’t tell them, they took her hand and led her to the welcome desk, where they had a stash of chocolate for just this purpose.
Now, all these years later, if I’m ever anywhere and I see a child standing alone looking lost, I cannot walk by without at least slowing down and seeing if a parent is close by. I hadn’t really thought about it until now, but maybe that need to make sure the child is taken care of stems from that scary day at the museum. That day, I was so thankful for the village who helped us out with our child—the person who noticed Sela standing alone in a sea of strangers and those calm and kind volunteers, like our friend’s mom, who keep chocolate in the desk until the frazzled parents show up.
When I’m not writing about my family and our ordinary life, I write novels, go to the grocery store and vacuum dog hair. My books are available in stores, online and locally at Little Professor Bookshop. You can reach me by email at Lauren@LaurenKDenton.com, visit my website LaurenKDenton.com, or find me on Instagram @LaurenKDentonBooks or Facebook ~LaurenKDentonAuthor.
