A miraculous meeting in the midst of a storm

As I left my mother’s apartment, I glanced at my watch. As usual, we had visited longer than planned as we got caught up in laughing and sharing stories. I treasured these visits with her, especially since my father’s death eighteen months earlier. You truly have to enjoy every moment you can, I told myself as I entered the elevator.

In the ride down two floors, I thought about the call I had just received moments earlier from my friend Brenda. A wicked storm had just passed through the area near my home, more than two hours west of Mom’s place, and she wanted to see if I was okay. I wondered about any potential damage or power failures as the elevator doors opened.

However, I was distracted by the thoughts of the visit ahead. My brother had a portion of my father’s ashes for me to pick up and I was running out of time to get to his place then back to our nearby cottage for dinner. I jumped into my car and headed out toward the highway.

Right away, I noticed the sky had turned a strange combination of purple and brown. The wind had picked up and an eerie feeling came over me. In that moment, I just wanted to get home.

“Hey, Bruce,” I said into the phone. “I feel like I’m driving into the eye of a storm so I’m going to turn around. I’ll have to swing by another day.”

Even as I hung up, the winds accelerated. By the time I had driven back into town, a ferocious storm was battering my car. Trees toppled onto the road and a tent blew out of nowhere and under my car.

I knew I had to pull over but where?

I turned left to seek refuge at my niece’s home. Getting there was treacherous as I swerved the car around windblown debris. The rain came down so heavily that I could barely see the road even with my windshield wipers on full speed.

Finally, I arrived at her brick home but she was not there. “Okay,” I told myself aloud. “You’re safe as long as you stay in this metal box.”

That’s when my car door flew open.

Suddenly, a screaming, drenched 10-year-old boy threw himself onto the front seat and slammed the door behind him. He was hysterical with fear to the point where I could barely make out what he was saying.

“Breathe,” I told him between his sobs. “You’re safe here. It’s okay.” Remember, I was pretty rattled but now I tried to stay calm for his sake.

He kept screaming about his mother. “She’s going to think I’m dead!” he yelled. After a several minutes, he settled down enough to explain himself.

The little guy had been at a friend’s house but left late since they were having so much fun playing a game. When he headed out on his bike to meet his mother on the other side of town, he got caught in the wicked storm. He tried to call her from my car but she didn’t pick up. Now, he feared she had died since she was also traveling by bicycle.

Now, this wasn’t just any storm. It was a derecho, a fast-moving group of severe thunderstorms that traveled in a straight line to wipe out trees and power lines. In less than an hour, it had traveled the distance it would take me three hours to drive home. We didn’t know it yet, but the electrical grid in this town would be down for a full week ahead.

And this boy had been riding his bike while I had been afraid while huddled in my car!

He was panicking about the state of his beloved bicycle, so when the rain eased up slightly, we found it lying on the curb in a huge puddle. I got drenched while loading it into my hatchback; now we were both soaked to the skin.

Finally, the boy reached his mother. She had tucked her phone into the bottom of her backpack to protect it from the rain. And she was desperate to see him to make sure he was all right.

“I’m in the car with a stranger,” he told her with a shaky voice.

“Not a scary stranger,” I chimed in, finally finding some humor in this nightmare. “Tell us where you are and we’ll come find you.”

As we drove to her location, I noticed that no one else was out on the street. If I hadn’t pulled up beside my niece’s house, who knows where this child would have gone.

It took us several minutes to get across town since so many streets were blocked by giant trees and fallen power lines. We zigged and zagged until we arrived at the intersection the distraught mother had described to us.

Shelly and Jude

A look of pure joy and relief lit up her face when she saw her son waving from my car. I had barely pulled over when he bolted from his seat and ran into her arms. It’s hard to tell which one of the three of us was crying the hardest. It had been such an emotional episode but here was this little boy back in the safety of his mother’s arms.

We chatted briefly but they were chilled and eager to get home into dry clothes. I returned to my car and marveled at the series of events that had put me in the right place at the right time.

My visit with Mom had run late. I had chosen to change course and forfeit my visit with my brother. If my niece had been home, the boy wouldn’t have seen me waiting in my car.

Wow. It was lucky for him that this series of events had unfolded the way they did.

I looked over at the wet seat of my car and said a silent “Thank you” to whatever greater power had brought us together that day. We both were lucky to have our Moms waiting for us after the storm.

(Originally published in Chicken Soup for the Soul in June 2023)