Missing boy reminds me of several times when we thought we'd lost it all

My friend Nicole Helget, mother of 15 kids by now, had a recent scare with her 9-year-old. The boy went swimming, and was supposed to go straight home. Instead, he did what any 9-year-old would want to do, which is go to a friend's house for more shenanigans and tomfoolery.

Problem was, mom and dad weren't in on the plans, and a whole lotta panic ensued, which was made much, much worse because of the involvement of a handful of police officers and sheriff's deputies. There was a search, frantic phone calls and, eventually, relief when the young man was reunited with a very, very worried mom.

This got me to thinking about my own kids, of course. And how there are times in every family where the kids aren't where they were supposed to be at a certain time and parents panic.

Ten years ago or so, we were at the St. Peter Fourth of July parade with both kids. A million people packed the streets that year. Wall-to-wall people on hand for the annual festivities. After the parade, people were milling about in the street when I hear my wife say, "Where' Samuel?" We both looked quickly all around us for a few seconds, but he wasn't there.

My thoughts were quite calm: HE'S BEEN ABDUCTED JUST LIKE JACOB WETTERLING OH MY GOD HE'S PROBABLY DEAD BY NOW HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN HE'S ONLY 2 YEARS OLD WHAT THE HELL IS THIS WORLD COMING TO WHEN YOU CAN'T EVEN GO TO A DAMN PARADE COMMEMORATING YOUR NATION'S BIRTH WITHOUT HAVING YOUR BABY BOY RIPPED AWAY FROM YOUR LIFE!!!!!!

About 7 seconds later, we found him. He was with the oldest daughter of our good friends, the Morrisons. Safe. Nothing wrong. All was well.

But jeepers ... It only took a split second for the mind of an otherwise rational father to make a quantum leap of logic and reasonably sure my son was dead and gone.

It happened again just few .years ago. Sam and Noah were supposedly at the pool or fishing at Spring Lake and they were supposed to be back home by a certain hour. I called home and they weren't there. So I swung by the park to see if they were just late getting back. Nope. I looked around some more and started to panic. To make a long story short, it turns out the boys had decided to see if they could climb the bluff.

??? Really ???

Turns out they could, but as they made their trek, I was running around the park frantically trying to find two boys, one of whom wasn't mind but had been entrusted to me. Again, thoughts of the worst raced through my mind.

Why?

I'm not sure. A child is as likely to be struck by lightning as they are to be abducted. And the rates of stranger abductions has steadily gone down since the 1980s. But a handful of stories, stuck in the American consciousness, still made parents like me fear the worst. Adam Walsh, taken from a video game display at a Sears store. Polly Klass plucked right out of her home during a slumber party. And Jacob Wetterling, taken right off the prairie by a man who, to this day, had eluded arrest or even identification.

Those are the stories that make a dad's heart race when his son is "missing" for 7 seconds at a parade. It'd be nice if we didn't have to worry about that crap. But I guess it's a parent's job to make sure his kids make it to adulthood. Part of that probably has to include making sure the serial killers and child rapists get nowhere near my kids.