Lessons from a Mom’s Nightmare

Have you ever felt powerless and crazed at the same time? Fearfully and maniacally powerless in a moment that might change your life forever? Dread and adrenaline pushing your legs to run, but you don’t know where to go. This sounds like the introduction to a horror story, but it’s not. At least not in a Freddy Krueger type of way. But if you’re a mom, you might understand how I felt when I thought I’d lost my daughter yesterday. Of course, in retrospect I feel foolish. I feel like I overreacted. But then again, I don’t care how foolish I looked. Being in your own nightmare would shake anyone up.

Here’s what went down. This year I decided to sign all three of my kids up for swim team. For those of you that don’t know, swim team is like tiny people’s military boot camp. It’s swim lessons on steroids. The kids have swim practice every weekday, the water is frigid cold, and they have 5 hour meets once a week. It’s insanity for kids and parents. For years I was adamantly opposed to signing my kids up, but I caved last year with the boys because, you know, all my friends were doing it. It turned out to be great for my boys’ swimming abilities, because you’d have to be legless to not improve after 5 days of training a week. Jackson’s morale faltered by the end of the season, but I’m sure he’ll bounce back after the cold water numbs him into submissiveness.

Anyway, this year I signed the boys up again, and added the 4 year old Vivlett to our crew of swimming Cerseys. She has practice every day like the boys, but only for 30 minutes instead of an hour and she doesn’t have to do the weekly swim meets. Yesterday, in true Vivlett fashion, she refused to get in the pool. I made her sit by my side and for 30 minutes I tried to convince her that she wanted to swim. I tried bribery, I tried motivational speeches, and then I gave up and grounded her from TV. She never got in the pool. I call this a MOMM (Manager of Mini-mes) fail.

Then it was the boys’ turn to swim. Even they were reluctant to get in the pool, but I guess they are more afraid of me than Viv is because they did it without much complaint. I wanted to encourage and support the boys, so I walked alongside the pool as they did their laps and cheered them on. Viv was playing with a friend a few feet away, and I would glance her way periodically to ensure that all was right in the world. And time after time, there she was, right where she should be.

Towards the end of practice the boys were growing more and more laggard and unwilling to continue, so I was busy trying to motivate them to get back in the water when I realized I couldn’t see The Vivlett anymore. I stood up and scanned the pool deck. No Viv. I went into the bathroom. No Viv. I hustled up to the playground a few hundred feet away, sure that she would be there. After all, she had been dying to play there, but I had told her not until after the boys were done. I was ready to scold her for not waiting until I said it was okay. But Viv. Wasn’t. There. I stared at the playground dumbfounded. Where else could she be? I ran back to the pool and scanned the area again. No Viv. I closely examined the pool itself, looking for a dark, motionless form laying beneath the splashing swimmers above. Thankfully, no Viv. I checked the tennis courts nearby where some other kids were playing. No Viv. I ran back to the playground because surely I had just missed her there. But still, no Viv. The final place I thought to look was the van. It was locked and Viv was nowhere to be seen. At this point I became frantic. I’d been keeping my wandering mind in check, trying hard not to catastrophize the situation before confirming an actual problem, but my adrenaline had started pumping. My daughter had been missing for several minutes and I had checked every conceivable place she would be.

People started to notice the crazy woman running back and forth from the pool to the playground to the parking lot. With strenuous desperation I called out Vivienne’s name over and over and over. My boys joined me in the search and my poor, sweet Jackson dropped to his knees beside the playground to pray.

My friends joined in too, of course. They began searching the nearby woods and the street. My mind slipped into the dark places where a Mom’s worst fears live. “Someone has taken her. They have her in their car and they are miles away already. They are going to sell her, or hurt her, or kill her.” “Or she wandered into the road and was hit by a car. She is bleeding out all alone somewhere nearby and I am not there for her.” “Or she is lost in the woods and she is calling out to me, but I can’t hear her.” “What will my life be like without her? Will I ever get out of bed again? Can I survive this?” My heart was pounding hard, preparing to break.

The other kids all got out of the pool. Strangers started joining the search. I ran from place to place yelling for her with all my heart. I was so wrapped up in the desolation of my fear that when I saw her, I almost didn’t believe my eyes. But there she was, as if nothing had happened. As if no time had gone by, despite the passing of an eternal 10 minutes. There she was on the edge of the parking lot chatting animatedly with another little girl. I scooped her up and hugged her so tight that she demanded to be put down, but I refused to release her. I kissed her head as she thrashed trying to get away from me. I welcomed her tantrum in that moment, because all that mattered was that she was back in my arms.

“Mommy! Put me down! I want to play!”

“Vivienne, where were you? Mommy was scared to death.”

“I was in that other little girl’s car. We wanted to play with her princess dolls. Put me down so I can play!”

The other girl looked to be about the same age as Vivienne, yet somehow they had both wandered up the hill, across the parking lot and into a car without anyone noticing. If our luck had run out, two little girls could’ve been gone, just like that. I wanted to be mad at the other little girl and at her mother, but I wasn’t too inundated with adrenaline to see the hypocrisy in that reaction.

Other moms came over to pat my back. My good friends made me take some deep breaths. Vivienne screamed and cried in my arms because I wouldn’t let her go. I packed my kids up and left without speaking to any of the concerned onlookers. A small part of me felt foolish, but a bigger part of me felt like a failure. Like this was a trial run for a serious incident and I failed. I took my eyes off of her too long and she got in a stranger’s car without me noticing. I could’ve lost my baby girl, and I’d have no one to blame but myself. Maybe I’m not cut out for this job. Those were my thoughts, and you know what? After 24 hours of reflection, those are still my thoughts. But I’ve got some new perspective today.

I’m not Wonder Woman, so that means I’m not the perfect candidate for this Mom gig. I don’t have eyes in the back of my head. I can’t be there for every moment of all three of my kids’ lives. I lose my temper sometimes. I forget to sign report cards. I don’t hear every word they say when they talk about Star  Wars, or Princess Sofia. I’m not a room mom at school. I’m almost always behind on their laundry. We are late to most of their activities. Do these things make me a bad mom? I don’t think so. Can I do better? Absolutely. Do I want to be better? With all of my heart and soul.

I think being a mom, is the most heart-wrenching, emotionally draining job in the world. I don’t think it is possible to get through motherhood without spending most of your days feeling like a failure in one way or another. But we do it for love. Because of that unconditional, undying love, we live in constant fear that something terrible will happen to our babies. Some nights I lie awake worrying about some unlikely catastrophe, but it’s because of love. And if something terrible were to happen to one of my kids—heaven forbid—I’m sure I’d blame myself no matter the circumstances. I don’t think there is a way to avoid that.

But, here’s the pep talk part. I have to give myself some credit. If I don’t, both my kids and I will only suffer unnecessarily. I beat myself up a lot and it makes me feel bad, and that makes me more irritable, which makes me a less fun mom. I need to give myself credit where credit is due, even if the only thing I can come up with is “I kept them alive today.” I was trying to be there for my boys while I thought my daughter was playing nearby. When we couldn’t find Vivienne, my son knelt down in prayer, something I taught him to do. I signed my kids up for swim so they won’t drown. I got my kids to their practice. These were things I did right leading up to my lapse in attentiveness. Was I intentionally negligent? No. There is some merit in that.

The bottom line is, as long as I do the best that I can do every day, then there is always some good to be found in my efforts. Even if my best today is worse than my best yesterday, I’m giving it all I can. As a MOMM, that is what I do. That is my job, Manager of Mini-Mes. And though I don’t always love the responsibilities, I do always love my kids, and I’ll keep at it for them. The more I choose to see the good in what I do, the more I will value the work I did to get there. My attitude will be better and my kids will benefit. If my daughter had to climb into a stranger’s car to help me realize this, then all I can do is thank Heavenly Father that it was only a little, harmless trial.

That’s all Cersey has to say about that.