One of the inevitabilities of having a large family is losing a child or children. For the Joyce clan, that was usually Jazmine. The first time I lost Jazzy was when she was two years old. We were in a book store and I had all 6 kids. We headed over to the train table and I counted. 5. I counted again. 5. One more count. 5. I asked another mom to watch my kids while I roamed the aisles calling Jazmine’s name. Security, with a description of my baby girl, watched the door. It took a few minutes before I realized I had been holding her the whole time. That was embarrassing.

You would think losing a child at Disney World, even for only a minute, would terrify a parent enough to never ever lose a child again as long as they shall live. Not this parent. I took the kids to Disney World in 2012, Jazmine had just turned 5 two months earlier. I lost her in Magic Kingdom. And did it again the very next day.

I never panicked when I lost a kid. I always knew they couldn’t be too far away because I had a pretty steady stream of counting to six running through my head at all times making sure I had everyone. And they were never gone long.

Until June 1, 2016. Julian was 12. We went to a soccer game in a small stadium. At half time, Vanessa stayed at the seats while I got food and drinks. While I did that, Julian used the bathroom. The bathrooms and the food stand were both right behind our seats. It was nearly impossible to get lost because it was so small there. We got our food and I didn’t see Julian. He should have been out by then, so I went back to our seats. There sat Vanessa. I asked where Julian was and she said she hasn’t seen him. We laughed a little at me leaving him down there, and I went down to get him. I could see the entire stadium from standing in one place. I looked and didn’t see Julian. The game started up again and there was only one person around. I asked the man if he could go into the mens room and see if maybe my son had gotten sick or something in the bathroom. While he did that, Jazmine and Allena went into the girls room to make sure he wasn’t in there. They called out to Julian, no answer. The mens room was also empty. He had been missing for about 15 minutes at that point, in a place that any one person should have been able to find any other person in under 5 minutes. We searched every nook and cranny.

At 20 minutes lost, I alerted security and their team of 20 plus officers helped search. We checked the parking lot and the area surrounding the stadium.

At 30 minutes lost, we contacted the police. Their officers searched the neighborhood and also the inside of the stadium. I kept checking in with the kids at our seats in case he went back there. They kept announcing on the loud speaker for him to come to the security desk. They stopped the game to make sure he wasn’t mixed in with the players on the field. They walked every aisle and looked under every seat.

At 40 minutes, I realized that the only possibility was that he had to have been taken. Someone took my boy. And they’ve had 40 minutes to escape and now he was surely in a basement on a mattress without a sheet under a single light bulb hanging above. I felt helpless and hopeless. And nobody seemed to be upset. They, all men, kept saying, we’ll find him, this place isn’t that big. To which I consistently responded that he is NOT here, somebody took him. They didn’t take me seriously.

At the one hour missing mark, I went to the owner of the stadium, a woman, who was the first to run instead of walk and realized this was very serious. Shortly after that, police walked over to me with Julian. I can’t even begin to describe the relief I felt.

Where was he? In the woman’s room. He accidently walked into the wrong bathroom and didn’t want to come out because he was embarrassed and didn’t want people laughing at him. Which is the same reason he didn’t respond when the girls called his name an hour earlier.

Today’s pic is right after finding Julian, the game was over at that point, he missed the entire second half.

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