Sunday, September 11, 2005

Gabriel Went Missing

Last weekend when I was in Knoxville I went to the mall with Matt's mom. We had to return a ball Gabriel 'took' for his grandfather. After returning the stolen goods we went to Dillards to look at the UT cheerleading outfits. While we were there we came across a UT jersey for Gabriel. Because I was traveling and had just come from the beach I only had a single stroller, so Gabriel was walking with us holding our hands. While we would look he would usually would play with Abby or look at the clothes. We had picked out and tried on the jersey for Gabriel and walked over to pay for it. We both told Gabriel to come over and stand with us. We got no response. I walked around the pillar to get him and he was gone. I started yelling his name and demanding that he answer me. Still no response. After a couple of seconds Matt's mom and the sales clerk also started searching. It had been a good five minutes and still no Gabriel and we were panicking. Gloria walked outside to look and I started to leave the children's section and didn't see him. I walked back over and the told Matt's mom that the elevator was in the corner. She took the elevator upstairs to see if he had gotten on and gone up. The sales lady asked for a discription and announced on the intercom that there was a missing boy named Gabriel. I was in a complete panic and crying by this point and imaging the worst. When we started yelling for him a lady came through and was asking if the sales staff had found something and then said that sounds like me earlier. She later met up with her husband and told him about Gabriel. He remembered seeing a little boy walk out alone into the mall and went to get him. They brought him back to the kids section where Gabriel comes running to me and crying. By this time we are both in tears. I look at the lady and can barely get the words out to thank her. She starts crying too and says she understands. And walks away. Gloria then joins us and is able to let Gabriel have it. All I could say was that I would let him have it as soon as I recover. This was one of the scariest moments of my life.

The sad part was Gabriel had wanted to get one of the mall strollers and we decided not to pay the 4.00 dollars because we weren't going to be that long. From now on I will spend the 4.00 dollars.

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