JDT

The other day, my daughters and I recently went running together. My older daughter has been running for a while as she joined her high school’s cross-country team last year and my younger daughter recently started running as her primary form of exercise. As for myself, well a little running wouldn’t hurt and I’ve been “trying” to lose some weight and get in better shape for quite some time now. 

With the weather outside giving us a break from the usual rainy Oregon winters, I thought a trip to the park would be a great place to go. My older daughter and I had gone there previously and it has a nice path with a loop section that gives her the distance she aims for. My younger daughter was initially hesitant to go as she had previously only gone to nearby tracks to run and wondered if she might go astray as she didn’t run as fast as her sister. I assured her that even if that were the case, I would keep up with her so she wouldn’t be alone.

The run started off smoothly enough although we had to change course a bit due to some parts of the path being flooded out. After about a mile, my nearly 50-year old body started to scream at me that I wasn’t as fit as I used to be. I noticed that my younger daughter was keeping up with her sister, so I said that I was slowing up and saw that they were moving on.

One of the benefits of modern technology is I knew I could track them through our cell phones. My younger daughter had noted when we parked the car that her phone battery was fairly low, but I thought it had enough juice to last through the run. As I pulled up to an intersection that led to the loop part of the course, I noticed on my phone that my older daughter had actually pulled ahead and my younger daughter was a bit behind and that both were in the loop portion, which went through the trees. I stopped and decided to wait for them both to return before all three of us headed back to our starting spot.

Soon my older daughter appeared in the distance and approached me. I asked where her sister was and she said that she was behind and hadn’t seen or heard from her for a little while. As she proceeded on a route back to where we had started, I looked back at my phone. It was taking some time to refresh but the dot for my younger daughter was in the same place that I checked before. I let it refresh again - no change.

I tried calling her phone and it went straight to voicemail. Her phone battery must have died, but I thought no problem. She was on the loop part of the path so if I headed that way I would surely run into her. As I followed my way to where the dot was on my phone, I saw no sign of her. I made my way around the loop and still no sign. I went back to the intersection of the path where I had been and looked around - she was nowhere to be found.

I called my older daughter who was just about back at where we had started and asked her if she had seen her sister. She replied that she hadn’t so I asked that she come back this way to see if she might run into her again. In the meantime, I proceeded into a different part of the park in the event my younger daughter may have gone there.

As time passed, I was not seeing my daughter and I started to ask some of the many people around if they had seen a five-foot Asian girl running around. None of them said they had. Minutes passed by but they seemed like hours. Meanwhile, it was starting to get dark. Multiple calls to my older daughter didn’t result in any new news. She was starting to freak out and in turn, so was I.

I made some calls to some friends who lived nearby to tell them about what was going on and if they could come and help look. I called up the girls’ mom to let her know what was going on and she was on her way. Adrenaline was starting to kick in, my breaths started to get heavy, and I was starting to fear the worst. Full-on panic wasn’t far away.

As I started going back to the intersection of the path again, and as I continued to ask people if they might have seen my daughter, my older daughter called - she and her sister were back at the car; somehow my younger daughter had found her way back. Breathing a big sigh of relief, I called my friends who had been on their way over to let them know she was found and thanked them profusely for their willingness to help.

I face-timed my daughters to see them and told them to wait there as I was on my way back. When I got there, my ex-wife had already arrived and the girls were sitting in her SUV. I swung around to the passenger side where my older daughter was sitting and as she rolled down the window, her mom told me my younger daughter was sitting in the back seat. I opened up her door.

Inside, my younger daughter was in tears. She was scared and still confused. I could do nothing but immediately embrace her tight and just hold her for a few minutes while crying myself. I told her how happy I was that she was safe and that I loved her. As we pulled away from hugging, her mom offered a comment to her. “Nothing that happened is your fault at all”.

At this moment, she turned and looked at me as a signal to say something. But before I say what I said, let’s look back at my childhood.

I don’t remember a specific circumstance, but there were definitely occasions as a child when I got separated from my parents in a public place. Whenever we were reunited, I received the same treatment that I had given my own daughter that night. I’d get a warm hug and would be told how happy it was that I was no longer lost, but found.

However, after that hug, the narrative was usually the same. Their despair would almost immediately change to something more stern. A lecture would ensue and I would be chastised for separating from them. The language spoken to me might even change back to their native Mandarin. Why didn’t I remember to do X, Y, and Z whenever this situation happened? Did I not know how much suffering they felt by me wandering away? It felt like I needed to be reminded it was my fault I got lost and that it was I that was responsible for their anguish.

Fast forward to now and the moment with my daughter. It was my turn to say something. After a pause and fixing my gaze back on her, I stammered out the words softy. “It wasn’t your fault at all - in fact, what happened is on me”. I explained that I should have done a better job keeping up with her. And even before that, perhaps it hadn’t been such a great idea to go to a place where she hadn’t run before. The fault was by no means hers. I gave her another hug.

After we got back home and some time had passed, a lot of the raw emotion had died down. My daughters and I decided to debrief. We discussed what to do in the future if anyone got separated from the group. We decided to make sure our phones were always fully charged before we went out and to be more aware of where each other was. We determined that if we went to a park again, we would go over the route so that my younger daughter would feel confident about where she would be running.

We also tried to analyze just exactly what had happened. We took out some paper and some markers and drew out the route and where each of us must have been when we got separated. The more we analyzed, the more it seemed the timing was just a bit off at every opportunity, and each time we just barely missed bumping into each other. There just didn’t seem to be any reason why we couldn’t have found one another.

I can only surmise that it was meant to happen that way, that we were supposed to just miss each other so that we could learn from the experience. For me, it was my opportunity to trust and be grateful I have friends who are willing to drop everything to help. It was another opportunity for my ex-wife and me to co-parent together in the best interests of our child. It was an opportunity for my two kids to bond and recognize how much they love each other, and for my younger daughter, perhaps a chance to build some confidence in herself since she remarkably found her way back all by herself.

But what really struck me was that, as a parent, I had been given the opportunity to do something different.

After hugging my daughter, I could have easily gone into lecture mode - something that I would have received as a child. Instead, with thanks to her mom’s comment, I could take responsibility for my part and further comfort my daughter and not look to place blame or seek to correct at that moment. Sure, some things could have been done differently but then and there was not the time to discuss those.

Bottom line - I could have made it about myself and my fears and in effect dismiss hers. But instead, I didn’t.

It’s hard to say the right thing sometimes. Especially when the emotions are fear or anger, one tends to naturally revert to react based on what they know or what they may have experienced themselves. I’m sure that’s probably what the case was with my parents back in the day. For myself, I’m glad I have the awareness of this, and today I don’t have to pass along any further damage to my children. I had the opportunity to help change the narrative and hopefully, I was able to do so. Furthermore, I was able to pass along this story to you.