Man In A White Car

Man in a White Car

There are times when all of us have passed through a gauntlet of trial and tribulation. We have become discouraged, broken-hearted, or not only disappointed in life but have peered beyond the precipice of despair to slip and fall into its depths...

I am fortunate to have had an experience that confirms, despite horrors in life, that good, purpose, and order do exist in the universe.

This is an odd story. It involves my Mother, brother, and myself... It also involves a protective agent; some say an Angel, a spirit of a loved one who has passed on, or coincidentally a human possessing omniscience regarding place, time, and the ability to read the minds of young children with the moral fortitude to act upon this knowledge. It's still a mystery to me.

My Mother, at the request of family and friends, has begun writing her life story as well as accounts of her spiritual journey on the Christian path.

The following is her account:

"I want to tell you a true story about my two little kids who set out one dark night to find their Mother. Two boys one around five and a half, and his little brother around three and a half.

I had wanted to go to church one Sunday night and because the boys were very young I had decided to hire a baby sitter so that I could go to church and take in the service without distractions. The girl that I had hired lived next door and was sixteen and her parents were home in case she had any problems.

As I did not drive in those days, I got a ride to church that Sunday night service that started at 7:00pm. Towards the end of the service (it must have been around 8:30pm) someone came and got me as I had been praying at the altar and said "your children are at the door of the church." I looked at them completely shocked and said "that can't be, they are home, most likely in bed by now."

They insisted I come to the back of the church and see for myself. The church had some stairs that went down to the front door and there standing at the foot of the stairs were my two little boys who had dirty faces, dirty clothes, noses running... And I was in complete shock!...as I saw this my mind could not perceive it as reality...

Why they were here? What happened!?

I ran down the stairs and hysterically said to my oldest boy "How did you get here?" What are you doing here? My oldest boy said he wanted to find me, his "Mommy," so he grabbed his brother's hand and set out to do just that.

Because I very rarely ever went anywhere without the kids they were not use to being watched by baby sitters. So they snuck out of the house and took off down the dark road to find their Mom.

We lived about five miles from the church and down at the end of our road was a large area that was leading up to a hill and in those days there was very little housing in our Washington neighborhood, Just a lot of woods and darkness.

My oldest son said they were walking along this dark road and a car drove up and a man asked them where they were going, he replied (my son clearly remembers telling him) "to church to find my Mommy." The boys did not know where the church was, just that their Mom was "at church." By the way my son said it was a white car and he did not remember what the man looked like. He said that the "man" just said get in and I will take you to your Mom. So in the car they went and they drove right up to the doors of the church. He said the man said to go up the steps to the church and open the door and they would find their Mother.

My son said the man never spoke to them other than to tell them they would be all right and he would make sure they found their Mom. Since the youngest boy was too young to tell much he just smiled and wiped his nose!

So here I stood with my mouth open and could not even think about the danger that my two little boys had been in... I of course asked the person who took me to take me and the boys back home and to try to find out what had happened.

When we got home the people next door were frantic and had called the police, however as yet they had not shown up. In those days living out in a rural area before the days of cell phones, the response of officials was very slow. Our baby sitter noticed right away that the boys were gone and started looking with the help of her parents and they all were frantic and upset.

So when we drove up with the two kids, the mother of the baby sitter started immediately cussing me out because she was so very upset about the situation. The officials were then notified that the children were safe and at home. After much discussion all of us went back to our homes.

We never found out who it was that picked them up! I sat down and began to think about what had happened. What person in their right mind would pick up two small boys in the dark, take them to a church where the children themselves had no idea where it was?"

End of my Mother's account.

I'm the three and half year old "little brother" in the account and was too young to remember this incident. My late brother however recalled it vividly and told me of this event several times when we had late night chats. He recounted that several times during the drive he tried to see the face of the man who drove us; the man always just managed to have his face averted or shadowed.

This happened in the sixties. We were just ordinary children. We grew up to have ordinary lives. I wish I could remember...

Despite the darkness and despair, I've lived long enough to know that mystery, beauty, and love continue to exist outside of ourselves.