Restless Nights

Life is full of happy and sad, good and bad, fun and boring.  I suppose that's what makes it interesting.  The years we lived in the little house we rented from mom and dad were like that.  Up and down, thrilling and depressing and often just going along the same as always, but going.


It was really fun living on a busy street, because the house was old and cute and I could decorate it with flowers and paint the windows at Christmas, and everyone always commented on how nice it looked.  It was almost like living in a gingerbread house. 

On the other hand, living on a main street also had it's drawbacks.  I'll never forget the night we woke up to flashing lights in the front yard.  Sheldon got out of bed and snuck into the front room to peak out the windows, finding policemen surrounding our house, flashlights drawn, poking around in the shrubbery and behind trees.  It turned out we had accidentally left the hatch-back up on our Mazda, and a vigilant policeman had called in a report of a possible burglary. 

Not long after that I was woken up one night by soft noises outside our bedroom window.  I'd left it open a crack since the nights were warming up as spring approached.  I looked out the curtains but couldn't see anything.  Both Sheldon and I wondered if this time there really was a burglar hiding behind our house, but it turned out to be one of the horses dad kept pastured on the lot between our back yard and the alley separating us from his house.  It had eaten through it's rope and was now enjoying the fresh new leaves on our trees.

The final nightly escapade while we lived at that little house scared me a lot more than the first two.  I usually woke up in the middle of the night and checked on the kids.  This night it was about 2:00 that I peaked into their bedroom to see how they were doing.  Linnea was sleeping peacefully on her bed.  Holly was snuggled down under her blankets next to her.  We had just moved Russell out of his crib to sleep on a twin sized mattress on the floor.  He was too big for the crib, but I worried that he might roll off a regular bed.  I walked over to his side of the room the see how he was doing, only to find his bed empty! .

Quickly I went back into my bedroom to see if he'd climbed up into our big waterbed next to Sheldon, but he wasn't there.  I checked the floor to make sure he wasn't sleeping there, then went back into the kids room again to see if he could possibly be sleeping by the girls.  No Russell.

I was getting pretty worried by this time, but I made the rounds through the house, checking the kitchen, front room, back room, bathroom.   Where could he possibly be?  Praying silently, I poked my head out the back door and called his name, peering into the shadows under the trees created by the big street lights out on the street.  I walked around to the front yard, shivers crawling up my spine, hoping no burglars or bad guys were out wandering the streets at this hour.  Surely Russell wouldn't have gone out front?

Now really scared, I hurried back into the house, calling Russell's name over and over.  I didn't know where else I could possibly look.  Frightened, I woke up Sheldon and told him I couldn't find Russell anywhere. He got up and helped me look again in all the places I'd already searched.

"What should we do," I asked in despair.  "I don't know where else to look.  Should we call the police?"

"I don't want to do that," he hesitated, "but maybe we'll have to.  Do you know what the phone number is?"  This was back before you automatically dialed 911 for every emergency. 

"I'll have to look in the phone book," I whispered, hurrying to the alcove between the two bedrooms where a niche had been built for a telephone.  We didn't keep ours there, but it was a good place for the phone books.  Just on a whim, or perhaps something whispered in my mind, I peeked back into the kids bedroom one more time. 

Russell's bed was still laying there empty, with all the covers pushed down in a heap at its foot.  He couldn't be there, could he?  Desperately I lifted the blankets, and sure enough, there was little Russell, curled up in a ball at the foot of his bed, covered with sheets and blankets and peacefully sound asleep!  Oh brother, what a relief!  Sheldon went grumpily back to bed, but I sat next to my sleeping son for a few minutes, thanking Heavenly Father over and over for helping me find him and for taking care of all of us. What a night!