Note: this is a true story, although I’ve changed the names. It was originally experienced and written in September 2012. 

The baby I wrote about in last week’s memoir entry was born, safe and well, on January 7th 1965 – Andrew Walter Tudway. So instead of including that part of my life, and the death of my parents, I have postponed those pieces of the patchwork quilt to tell you about in January. In the meantime, for this week, I have jumped forward to September 2012, to share with my readers and well-wishers this little incident, which happened in Cardiff comparatively recently. I hope you can see how it fits in.

I walked home from Evening Service the other week; it’s not far. On the corner of a road near home, I saw a couple looking at a little girl. They were white and she looked to be Asian, between 2 and 3 years old. I was intrigued, or maybe ‘nosy’ might be a better word. I slowed down.

“Do you know this little girl?” the woman asked, eagerly. Her partner stood back, fearful of being involved, as a man often is in these suspicious times.

“I’m afraid I don’t,” I said, joining them in studying the child, who looked back at us impassively. She was dressed in a candy-coloured fleece, with turquoise trousers and a white and yellow striped t-shirt. On her feet were pink jelly crocs.

Lost! How had she got there? Had she come from one of the houses? Had she been brought by children who then left her?

“What is your name?” we coaxed, kneeling down to her level.

“Yasmin,” she replied. But when we asked where she lived she waved a regal hand first one way, then the other. She looked across the empty street and suddenly called, imperiously, “Aboo!” and again, after a pause “Aboo!”

“I think that’s ‘Daddy.’” I said. Yasmin looked at us. “Aboo lost!” she declared.

The woman and I spoke quietly together. We certainly couldn’t leave her and we didn’t know where to start with the rows of houses. It began, softly, to rain. “We’ll have to ring the police,” I said, and the woman agreed.

The female officer on the 999 desk took the details quickly and efficiently. As I put back my phone, Yasmin, suddenly tiring of us and of this adventure, turned and ran off down the road. We adults puffed along behind and saw her run up the path of a house just before the main road. A few confusing moments followed, with a surprised mother hugging Yasmin and asking us where she had been. It seemed that she had followed her father and older sister out to the chip shop, both parents assuming she was with the other, but her father hadn’t noticed and had driven away.

All was well. We agreed the first couple should continue on their way and I would call the police desk again to tell them. I was a little embarrassed as I explained, but the operator exclaimed warmly: “Ah, every mother’s worst nightmare!” and I knew I had been right to phone.

Yasmin’s mother came back out and invited me in, distressed and relieved at one and the same time. Fuller explanations were exchanged.  Yasmin’s mother identified herself as Shamina and made cups of tea. The father and the older girl appeared, having been summoned. They all talked rapidly and agitatedly, then father vanished once more on the aborted mission to get a chicken and chips supper.

As we relaxed together, I told Shamina how good Yasmin had been. “She stayed on the pavement,”  I said. “She didn’t go near the road and she found her own way back. What a clever girl!”. Yasmin stared at me solemnly and ate chocolate biscuits. Her mother tried to say, “Wait and have your supper”, but her heart was not in it and the little girl made the most of her chance, munching through the plateful. We drank tea and became friends, finding we knew some of the same people at the local school.

There was a ring at the door and Shamina and Yasmin went out. I heard the unmistakable sound of two pairs of policemen’s boots in the hall and the officer saying: “A busybody phoned up.” I was not offended; it was obvious from his words and tone that he had summed up the situation correctly and wanted to reassure them that this was a friendly, non-judgemental call. All the same, I couldn’t resist putting my head round the door, “I’m the busybody.” I said, “I’m having a cup of tea!”

The officers seemed just like every pair on the telly, one older and tougher, the other [he’s got kids himself] younger and smiley.

I walked home with tears running down my cheeks, but they were tears of astonished happiness. This little incident happened on the evening of the 16th September 2012. Each year, the 17th of September is a tragically significant date for me. 45 years before, my 20-month-old toddler son, Andrew Walter Tudway, had done the same thing on that date, slipping out of the house momentarily unnoticed, straight out into the main road, to be killed instantly by a car.

I have long since made my peace with the memories of that night, but one never forgets. It is a time when I remember all the other parents who lose children, in whatever circumstances.

What a wonderful tiny domestic miracle to be given to me on the eve of the anniversary of losing baby Andrew! What a message of forgiveness and love! I could almost hear the words that God was saying to me, to all of us:

“Look, my darling, these things are happening all the time and if they are anyone’s fault they are Mine and I have already put it right! You were allowed to put it right for someone else, so that one of my best beloved little ones was not even frightened, but praised and loved. What’s more, tonight, ten people were left feeling better connected and relieved.

You and two other strangers became good Samaritans and went home feeling better about yourselves. You connected with a police phone operator and allowed her to feel human. Yasmin, her two parents and an older sister were helped, before they even knew there was a problem, and they were grateful for it. Two policemen dealt with a case in which no bad things happened nor ill words were spoken. They went off knowing they had a valuable job, which they could do well.

But, even more important, no-one was lost. No-one is ever lost. Yasmin’s earthly father may have been a little absent-minded, but he wasn’t lost, nor was my little Yasmin and nor is my little angel, Andrew.”

As I walked on home, I reflected that our Heavenly Aboo is never lost either. We children may think he is. “God is dead. God doesn’t exist,” say the philosophers. We call out in desolation with the Psalmists, asking why He has deserted His people. Most poignantly, even Christ cried out on the cross, as the weight of all the world crushed him, “My God, my God. Why hast Thou forsaken me?” but that was not his last word, either.

Maybe, when we think God is lost, it’s just we ourselves who have mislaid Him. He is busy preparing the Great Feast, to which we are all invited. Chicken and chips and chocolate biscuits in Heaven! That’ll just about do me. What about you?