Four girls, two dogs, Samm and I set out on our little journey, two blocks to the park. As we walked across the grass I noticed a small asian boy playing alone at the bottom of a very tall slide. There were no other children or adults around, but the park is surrounded by homes, so I assumed his was close. After about 10 minutes of watching Toby and Thumper slide down the smaller yellow plastic slide, and swinging with Kami on the swing, I looked over towards the big slide to see the small boy in the large red polo sitting all the way at the top. He was sitting just around the corner of the twisting slide, so I could barely see him. Knees to his chest, tucked inside the over-sized shirt the little boy let out a feeble.... "momma?"
"Samm," I said, "I think he is lost-- he keeps calling for his mom."
"Maybe he thinks YOU are his mom," one of the girls said.
I left Samm to attend to Kami in the swing, tied the dogs to the pole of the swing-set and walked over to see if he needed my help. After coxing him down the slide, I got him to point in the direction of his house. His small hand reached up to mine and we walked across the large open lot towards a blue ranch-style house.
"Is he MEXICAN?" one of the girls bellowed.
"No sweetie, he's not," I said, not sure how address that topic with the boy clutching my hand. I decided not to tackle the question any further and continued trudging through the grass.
Behind us trailed the three older girls. We all introduced ourselves and the little boy said nothing, just squeezed my hand and kept walking towards the house. After correctly guessing his age as 5, I got a small smile and we arrived at the back side of the garage.
"Is this your house?" I asked.
He shook his head no, but smiled. We continued to walk further onto the property and I saw a group full of people sitting in lawn chairs. They were chattering in a language that I certainly couldn't understand, but I knew this was the boy's home so I decided to do my best at explaining myself.
They all turned and looked at me and then down at the little boy, clearly in shock. I am not sure if they even understood me, but I explained that he was scared and was looking for his mother. They looked kind of bewildered, and someone from the back of the group said, "Oh! Thank you! He must have snuck away!" I caught the eye of what must have been the boy's mother as she looked up from hugging her tiny son. She breathed out a sigh of relief and gave me a quick nod and smile.
The girls and I headed back towards the park, and I couldn't help but think that some conversations don't have a language barrier.
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