I Can't Find Those Who Love Me
Little boots track a sloppy melted snow trail through the local five-and-dime as strapping middle school boys with bedhead cowlicks and milk mustaches stride determinedly toward the best gift for mom and dad. Scampering close behind is my grandson, eagerly following his uncles’ footsteps.
“Dilbert, you better come with Grandma,” I coax, “Let’s go find a treat.” Dilbert shakes his head vehemently, eyes shining. “No, go wit Buzz. Go wit Zeke. Go wit Dwover.” “Zeke, you take Dilbert’s hand and don’t let go!” I admonish, “We don’t want him to wander off! One of you better know where he is AT ALL TIMES,” I emphasize.
“Don’t worry, Mom,” Zeke promises, “we won’t let him get lost.” “We’ll hang on to him, Mom,” echo the other two with serious eyes. With some trepidation, knowing Dilbert’s tendency toward impulsive dashing to and fro, I let Dilbert go shopping with his beloved uncles. My grownup married kids have given a special gift to my younger ones with nieces and nephews who idolize them with starry-eyed love.
“Frosty the Snowman” is jingling over the speakers, and a feeling of festivity gives my step an extra kick as I thread my way through throngs of shoppers to a different aisle for some last-minute stocking stuffers.
Deliberating between a card game, Phase 10, or the book, Black Stallion, I am humming along with “On the twelfth day of Christmas…” when my sleeve is suddenly grabbed and yanked as wide-eyed Drover huffs a horrifying message, “DILBERT IS GONE!! WE CAN’T FIND HIM!”
My heart drops like a rock to my toes and my stomach develops a boulder the size of a basketball. OH NO! Why didn’t I keep him with me?? I should have known the boys would get busy looking at something and forget to watch Dilbert EVERY SINGLE SECOND. They don’t know how quick he is. Well, he can’t have gone far, right? We will find him, surely, just in the next aisle checking out the cars or balls. “Where? Where were you when he disappeared? Take me there!!” I demand.
Three worried boys, faces three shades paler, and a very frantic grandma hurry this way and that, up one aisle and the other, pushing aside carts and nudging old ladies with barely an “excuse me.” But there is no sign of a lost little boy with a cute little grin. Come on, Dilbert, where oh where are you? A moan escapes me as I become more concerned by the minute, my heart beating wildly as I imagine all kinds of scenarios that would best be left to thriller novels and not in real life. Oh no….! What shall I do??? Do I go to customer service and ask for help?
Then I hear my name. I listen more closely. Oh, sweet relief! On the loudspeakers comes this message, “….Elaine, please come to the service counter for a lost child…would Grandma Elaine please come to the service counter for a lost child?” Deep thankfulness knowing Dilbert is safe, embarrassment for not knowing who of my friends may have heard the message, and a chuckle for the cuteness of it all fight for top billing in my emotions. We all scurry as fast as our feet can carry us to the service counter.
There stands the little Houdini, calmly slurping on a red sucker, surrounded by three store employees, one of them holding Dilbert’s hand. The paunchy older guy seems eager to meet us. Uh-oh, am I in trouble, I wonder? I go straight to my sweet grandson and gave him the biggest squeeze ever. “Oh buddy, I am so glad to see you! Grandma thought you got lost!” He takes my hand and grins, “I not lost, Gwamma,” he says.
My heart settles into a quieter rhythm, and I turn to the employee. He has something to say. “We found him outside the doors heading to the parking lot,” he says. Oh, my goodness, I think, my eyebrows furrowing and my mouth dropping open. Oh, my goodness. Mr Employee continues, and his eyes twinkle surprisingly. I wonder what is coming. “When we asked him if he was lost,” Mr. Employee continues, “he told us the cutest thing.”
I am waiting to hear, clutching Dilbert’s hand firmly. “He said,” Mr. Employee adds, and he reaches down to tousle Dilbert’s hair, “he said that he wasn’t lost. He wasn’t lost, but he was looking for someone.”
“I looking and looking,” said the child, “but I tan’t find those people who wuv me.”
I kneel down on the sloppy concrete floor and take this wise child in my lap. I hug him close as lilting strains of “What Child is This…” play overhead. I feel for just a moment a sense of unseen angels who kept Dilbert safe in this moment, and I think, my little Dilbert, you are on a great search. Always, always look for those who love you. And hold their hands so you can always find them.
