Sunday Special: Running Away Redux, A Woman's Perspective

Guest Contributor, Leslie Kolbrener
[the following is excerpted from a longer piece; and no, this is not a different perspective on an old story; he ran away again--WDK]

Shmuel ran out of the house, dressed, and disappeared. Night was approaching and there were a lot of cars in the streets and everybody I could find standing or sitting still seemed just to have arrived in that position and so couldn't have had the leisure to sight a little boy with Down Syndrome running away from home. Freidy started crying after a time, our searches all coming up empty. I told her to have faith and keep on looking. She did and she found him, she out of all of us, enlisted friends and all the other children. He had crossed the busy street in front of our house--unless an angel had carried him across. Perfectly natural, I keep telling myself to want to leave the house alone, in the heat of the summer I feel it every night, the desire for it. He was newly created when he came home that night, one hand firmly in Freidy's, a stange new joy permeating his exuberant knowing little face, Freidy happy beyond expression, as if the hand she held were that of her newly wedded husband, instead of just the hand of her wayward younger brother.