The summer when I was ten or eleven, I went camping with my family and my two childhood best friends’ families. It was our annual summer event, and we always looked forward to spending two days of our summer break in the nature sharing our family friendship.
That summer, on the way to the camping site, we dropped by at a large grocery store to purchase everything we needed for the BBQ. We children played in the store looking at different items while adults did the shopping. When they finished all the shopping, they called for us and we ran back to our cars.
Back in the parking lot, there was a small talk happening around one of my friends’ mother. We all went close to her and listened to what had happened. She was talking about her son, my friend’s little brother, who was about six years old at the time.
“The other day, he accompanied me to my regular shopping,” she said. “He was going to wait in the car while I did my shopping. But when I finished and came back to my car, I couldn’t find him!”
Everybody including myself held breath.
“My mind immediately went to the worst case scenario! I thought maybe somebody might have taken him away! I was panicking.”
Everybody eagerly waited for her next line.
“Then, I saw my son walking toward me, crying. When he came to me, he said, ‘I thought you were kidnapped, Mommy’! That’s what he said!”
Somehow, this story left a lasting impression on me. It was a comical story because nobody was actually kidnapped that day, but I found it sweet that the mother and the six-year-old son were both panicking, thinking of the exact same worst case scenario for each other.