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| Jesse in the Fullerton, CA apartment with all his toys. |
When
the kids were little, we lived in a three bedroom apartment in Fullerton,
California on a tremendously busy four-lane street. We were fortunate that there were other nice
families, with small children for our kids to hang out with, in our apartment
complex.
Late,
one warm summer afternoon, the neighborhood kids had gathered for a huge game
of hide and seek. Beau who was 11, Sarah
who was 6, and Jesse who was 18 months old were all outside in the front of our
apartment. They were involved in the community
game. As it started to get dark, I
stepped outside to check on everyone. I
reminded Beau and Sarah that they needed to keep an eye on Jesse.
It
dawned on me, just as I said it, that I could not actually see Jesse from where
I was standing. Feeling kind of
panicked, I turned to Beau with a questioning look. “Where’s your brother?” I urgently asked. He said, “Mom, he was right here a second
ago.” Completely alarmed now, I ask
Sarah if she has seen him. She told me
that the last time she saw him was in the front yard.
My
heart felt like it had exploded with fear.
I ran as fast as I have ever moved in my life to the front of the
apartment complex. Beau and Sarah were
following close behind. As I emerged
from between the two buildings to the front of the complex, I spotted my tiny
toddler just about to step off the curb.
He
was standing between two cars that were parked along the road. He had his tiny little left hand on the front
bumper of one car. He was moving down
the curb like it was a giant step. He
was having a bit of trouble balancing and was still hanging onto the car.
I
was still running at break neck speed. I
felt like I wanted to scream to him at the top of my lungs, so he would freeze
in his tracks. But I had no idea what
startling him would do. So, I urgently
spoke to him in my most “you better mind me” mom voice, and said, “Jesse come
here!”
Jesse
turned to look at me. He saw that I was
running. Once he focused on me, a huge
smile appeared on his face. He assumed I
was playing a game with him. I could
tell he thought I was going to chase him as I had so many times before. My panic now raged. He started laughing and turned away from me
to run . . . straight into oncoming, rush hour traffic. The speed limit was 40 miles per hour and the
cars were flying by. Dusk has set in and
the drivers had their headlights on in order to see.
Jesse
squealed his adorable little laugh and took off between the cars. I continued running at him. I honestly did not have any idea what I would
do if and when I caught up to him. He
had no idea the danger he faced.
Just
as he emerged from between the two parked cars and into the street, I reached
him. The drivers could see me running
into the street but were unable to see Jesse because he was so much shorter
than the cars that hid him. The cars started
honking at me; it was deafening. The noise
added to the confusion of my running at him and yelling for him to stop. He started to turn back and I could see the
look of terror on his face. He knew
something was very wrong.
At
the exact moment that I got to him, I grabbed him under his armpits and swung
him up and around trying to move both of us out of the street. The car that was closest to us had nowhere to
go. There were cars to his left and I believed he was going to hit us. Jesse’s feet actually swung over the hood of
the car as I lifted him out of the street. The car missed us by only a few inches.
Jesse
hung on to me for dear life and I clung to him out of sheer fear. I stepped back between the cars and up onto
the sidewalk. I held him close. As I looked back toward the building, I saw
both Beau and Sarah standing there frozen in shock.
I cannot imagine what it would have been like if they had witnessed both
their mom and little brother get hit by a car.
I
quietly asked both of the older kids to follow me into the house. We were quite a stoic bunch that evening. Beau felt bad; blaming himself for the near
accident. However, I was not worried
about blame at that moment. I walked
over to the couch, sat down, and held Jesse in my lap. I held him tighter than I ever had. I would not let him down for nearly an
hour. I sat there and sobbed as the
trauma from the ordeal subsided from my body.
It truly was one of the scariest moments of my entire life.
Last
week, I asked Jesse if he had any recollection of the event. He said that since I had told the story
before, he was familiar with it, but that he did not remember it
firsthand. I asked Sarah if she
remembered her reaction to the event.
All she had to say to me, with a mischievous smile across her face, was,
“Yeah, all I remember is . . . it wasn’t my fault.”
(c) 2014 Diane C. LeJeune and Tribal Tales. (c) 2014 Feeling Good Entertainment, LLC
