When I was 3, I mistakenly took a strange woman's hand

[catbyte]

instead of my mom's while in Wurzburg's Department Store in downtown Grand Rapids, MI. We were in the "Women's Wear" Department. I even remember the pattern of the dress my mom was wearing that day. Today is my 63rd birthday, and I can still feel the trauma of looking up and seeing that the hand I was holding wasn't my mom's. For a moment, I didn't know where she was, although she was right behind me, looking at me in a bemused way. It's my earliest memory. These kids will NEVER get over this.

Fuck you, Trump. Fuck you, Nielsen. Fuck you Sessions. Fuck you, Republican party. Fuck every last one of you who voted for that monster. You are ALL to blame for this.

[Cracklin Charlie]

1. Same EXACT thing happened to me in the grocery store.

I looked up, lady smiled at me, and I was terrified.

My mom was right behind me.

I can’t imagine what these families are going through.

[calimary]

30. Same EXACT thing happened to me - leaving church after Mass on Sunday.

Sheesh!

In the crowd trying to funnel through one doorway, somehow I wound up holding the hand of another woman. I looked up after a few moments and the lady was smiling down at me, but it WASN'T my mom! I freaked out (quietly, didn't cry out or make a scene, but I knew this was WRONG-WRONG-WRONG!!!), and released the hand-hold immediately! And just as with your experience, my mom and dad were right behind me.

Just imagine that - extended from just two or three seconds to two or three WEEKS - and beyond! Probably WAY beyond, since it's doubtful the parents and their kids now in cages and tent cities will ever be reunited. I'm guessing many of those parents have already been deported back down to Guatemala, El Salvador, and elsewhere. And nobody's keeping track, and the staffing's down at all these Cabinet positions, and the funding's not there, and the so-called pResident just came up with this in April and nobody had time to plan or staff up, and they're scrambling now.

[catbyte]

42. Exactly. I vividly remember an incident that lasted a moment after 60 years. I can't

wrap my mind around what those poor little children are going through--snatched from their universe and deposited in a strange place where there are strange faces, strange food, strange language, and then to be stuffed on a plane to god only knows where. It's too horrible to contemplate.

[calimary]

46. It's state-sponsored child abuse.

Absolutely. Holding those babies hostage for his damn wall. That FUCKER. NUMBER ONE member of the "Special Place in Hell" Club.

[lillypaddle]

40. Me, too. nt

[Floyd R. Turbo]

2. They don't care! They view those kids as less than themselves. Perhaps 3/5 of a human!

[Ohiogal]

8. Unfortunately, you are correct, Floyd

[Beartracks]

44. But it's all to protect... Uh... What are we protecting again?

It certainly doesn't seem to be American values that we're protecting with this Republican policy.

=======

[Solly Mack]

3. I was around the same age when my mom was in a very bad wreck.

I was whisked away in the middle of the night to my father's house - a man I had no relationship with at all. Where his second wife beat me black and blue for needing to go to the bathroom during dinner.

I honestly can't remember the beating, hazy images is all - that's how bad it was. But I can remember how it felt not to know what was going on and not knowing - or understanding, really - where my mother was and why I wasn't with her. That I remember well.

[Ohiogal]

6. I'm so sorry, Solly Mack

What a horrible experience!

[Solly Mack]

14. Thank you, Ohiogal

She's dead now and she died unhappy - the wicked stepmother.

[Scarsdale]

53. Poetic justice,

or Karma. Unfortunately, the survivors remember, the perps do not. Too bad you did not have a caring father.

[malaise]

10. Too sad

[Solly Mack]

15. Thank you, malaise.

I don't know if I'm fortunate or not to not remember the beating. I always wanted to remember it. Because the second I did, I was making my way over to her house. She's dead now, so...

[Demovictory9]

33. omg. that is horrible

[Solly Mack]

34. She was a horrible woman.

[suffragette]

51. Oh, Solly.

I’m so sorry you went through that.

[Solly Mack]

52. Thanks, suffragette

[nolabear]

4. When I was nine my mother went to hospital for a year.

We were sent to stay with our grandparents, who were loving and took great care of us. Sadly a few years later we went back to them when she died.

I still remember that first separation when, even with those loving people, my five year old sister wandered around sobbing and wringing her hands. Me? I learned to get my needs met through writing stories about abandoned puppies and listening to the radio endlessly, alone.

Our one year old sister never reattached to our mother. She still, fortunately, relates to the grandparents as her parents, fifty plus years later.

We were the lucky ones.

[Luz]

5. Me too. My dad was standing with a group of men. Back then

they all wore khaki slacks. I ran up and grabbed my dads leg, only when I looked up, it wasn't him. I'm 60, and I've not forgotten the feeling, either.

[Ohiogal]

7. When we were in a hotel lobby in downtown Cleveland

and I was about 4 ...... I asked a man who I thought was my dad (a big adult out of the corner of my eye) if I could have a candy bar from the snack shelf. I looked up and that man wasn't my dad, although he smiled at me. I remember I ran away terrified. Everyone here is so right, that memory never leaves you.

I can't imagine these small toddlers flying alone on airplanes ... AIRPLANES! No one to hold their hand, no one to tell them what the strange noises are .... it is just too horrible to imagine.

[kimbutgar]

9. That happened to me also as a kid

The lady smiled down in me and said let’s find your Mom. Mom was frantic but thanked the lady for keeping me safe. I shutter to think if I grabbed a bad persons hand.

A few weeks again my hubby, sister and I were in the mall and I saw this 3 year old playing on the escalator, trying to put straws in it. I said no no immediately and looked around for a mother, for about 3 minutes I stood by and was afraid to touch the child, finally a little boy came and grabbed her. We looked up and there was mom with a smaller child looking frazzled. We then got on the escalator. The little girl refused to come up with her brother and mom was screaming come up now.

[lpbk2713]

11. They will be dysfunctional adults.

And that is the whole point of the exercise.

[BBG]

29. This. Republican policies are geared to proving governmental incompetence.

It’s what they do. Break things and hurt people. They are their own proof of failure of government.

Fucking fascist anarchists.

[Beartracks]

45. Like jocks who think math is dumb, Republicans hate govt cuz they suck at it.

No offense to smart jocks.

========

[Honeycombe8]

12. Great story. nt

[yurbud]

13. when my daughter was two, she walked on the other side of a display in a store

and screamed when she realized she couldn't see me even though the display was only three or four feet long.

[LeftInTX]

16. Happened to me, but I was 5...so it wasn't very traumatic

The lady probably had no idea I wasn't her kid. I think I shouted, "Mommy" and she was a few feet away.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

17. When you discover your mom is nowhere to be seen, it's terrifying.

I was one of those kids who'd get distracted and quickly try to wander off somewhere before my mom could notice. Most of the time she'd catch me pretty fast, but I remember a couple of occasions when I was maybe about 4 or 5 and scooted off in a department store, got on the other side of a clothes rack and suddenly realized I couldn't see my mom and I didn't know where she was! Of course I freaked out because that's what kids do if they can't find their mothers. I can't imagine how terrified these immigrant kids were, not only physically taken away from their parents but put in a strange place, maybe a cage, with strangers who wouldn't do anything to help or comfort them.

There's a special place in Hell...

[smirkymonkey]

21. I remember that feeling too.

Losing my parents in a department store. That feeling of sheer panic. I was only separated from them for about 5 minutes or so, but it was so traumatizing. I thought I would never see them again. I thought I was lost forever. People don't realize how children react to even a temporary loss of their parents. It's horrible.

[bucolic_frolic]

18. There is just such a disgust factor with Trump's policy here and

the way he tried to sell it to the public.

Everyone feels disgust because they wouldn't want it happening to them or theirs or anyone else's

It's just such a YUCK feeling, makes one physically ill

And it's not likely to change anytime soon

[Leith]

19. When I Was in My Twenties

I was in the grocery store when I felt a little tug on the skirt of my sundress. I looked down just as a little boy looked up at me - and the terror on his face made me feel horrible. He let go of my skirt and ran off to his real mom. If he remembers that, I hope he remembers that feeling when thinking about chump's hostages.

[RandomAccess]

20. And I remember a different scene --

Going very nearly hysterical when I got separated from my 10 year old son at DisneyWorld and didn't know where or how to find him. It had started raining, so everyone had dashed into shops. When I realized we were separated (long story), I dashed in to one of the shops and was pushing people out of my way in a way that would embarrass me had I been remotely sane. But I wasn't sane at all.

I can't imagine the mothers' pain, anguish, fear, grief. I can't imagine what having a child pulled from your arms would be like.

[Demovictory9]

36. The event in this video plays like a movie... from distraught mom, crowd helping, distraught child,

then they find each other

[MaryMagdaline]

22. Only a person with empathy like yourself will recall your own fear

And relate it to the experiences of other children.

I am grateful for your humanity and those of others on this site. I can’t get through these next years without that humanity.

[onecent]

23. i FEEL the same way you do...but I'll get kicked off if I say a bad word...

[MurrayDelph]

24. I never had kids

but as a retired elementary school teacher in California (for another 10 days. When the current credential expires, it's not getting renewed), I have stepped in when a kid gets separated from his/her family at Disneyland, assuring the kid that that her mother will be looking for her and that she'll be fine.

When I took (virtual or actual) nieces or nephews to Disneyland, the first thing I would do when we got in would be to take my charge over to a Cast Member, show her what the badge looks like, assure them that I will try very hard to not lose them, but if I do that they should immediately go to someone wearing that badge who will take care of them until I find them again.

[Cha]

25. Of course they won't! Good memory

catbyte.

I can still remember getting off at the wrong bus stop when I was 5 and being lost on my first day coming home from kindergarten. A man in a car saw me and asked if I needed help. I saw groceries in the back of his car and got in and gave him my address(I can still remember that, too.. in Houston, Texas).. I was lucky.. but these kind of things you remember.

These babies and Kids snatched from their parents by trump's draconian policies will never forget.. I hope they can heal and hell.. get re-united with their parents!

[MuseRider]

26. My parents when really angry

would drive us to the orphanage, make us get out then drive off. We never knew if they would come back. Think we all have issues about abandonment and self worth? That was for 5 minutes.

[Demovictory9]

37. ack!!

[MuseRider]

38. Exactly.

These poor little kids.

[True Blue American]

50. That is awful.

Boy, what problems that would create!

I remember when we would go to my Grandparentswe would pass what they called,” The Poorhouse!” Mom would always Point it out, that was what happened to poor people.

To this day that fear is with me.

[DoctorJoJo]

27. Yes--It IS Traumatic and I remember Like Yesterday!

I was 3 or 4 in a store in Florida, where my Dad was stationed as an Officer in the US Army Air Corps during WWII. As you might imagine, it was filled with Army khaki pant legs. The pants near me moved to walk out of the store, and I followed up the street, before suddenly realizing they weren't his! I screamed and was frozen in time, when my Dad came running out of the store. I remember my Mom and Dad laughing about it later, but it is still with me!

[no_hypocrisy]

28. I got separated from my family at age 7 at the New York Worlds Fair (1965) at closing time.

Big crowd. Looked around and they weren't there.

Took an hour for them to find me. At that point, I figured I was screwed and they went home without me. The fear of abandonment was more overwhelming than being lost.

[Dream Girl]

31. Happy birthday cat Tye and thank you for posting

[dflprincess]

32. I never lost track of a parent but I "misplaced" my eldest nephew at the zoo when he was about 3

I looked down and he wasn't there and the panic I felt was unbelievable. Fortunately I heard him scream my name and I was able to find him. His words to me were "I"m mad at you, you let me get losted." (He was 3, language was not his strong suit.)

He's about to turn 38 and still remembers that event.

[True Blue American]

49. Funny!:)

[cooldude]

35. I don't want to diminish your trauma but

when I was about 8 years old I went to the store with my 9 year old brother to buy a loaf of bread for our mother. When we were getting ready to cross the street where the store was, I noticed a older model black sedan parking along the main street where no one ever parked and I thought that was very strange. When my brother and I came out of the store, the black car was still there. It was very close to where we had to cross the street and I noticed two strange looking men dressed in black standing outside the car. At that time (mid 50s), there were very few non-white people living in my town and the men were not white but a skin color I had never seen before. They had more brownish colored skin. Before we crossed the street, I commented to my brother that there was something strange about these two men and that we should be careful when we had to walk past them. Sure enough, when we crossed the street and tried to walk past them, one of the men who was very heavy grabbed my upper left arm so hard that it would be almost impossible for me to escape his grasp. Luckily for me, just a few weeks earlier, my father had taught me how to break someone's grasp who grabs me by rolling my arm towards the thumb of the hand that is grasping me. I did that and the man couldn't hold on and I broke free from his grasp. As my brother and I stood a few feet away from the two of them, the heavier man said he just wanted to ask me the directions to the local movie theater which was in the next town about 3 miles away because they wanted to go to a movie. After I gave him the directions, he immediately asked us if we wanted to go to the movies with them and they would pay our way then drive us back home. We said no because we had to bring the loaf of bread we were carrying back to our mom right away. The two men just stood there and my brother and I began walking away from them back towards our house. When we walked around the corner, we both looked back at the men and they were getting back into their car. We both knew that we had to walk about a half a mile down a straight road where there were no houses or people so we looked at each other and without saying anything we began running as fast as we could down the street. When we got about half way down the street we looked back and sure enough we saw that the car had turned onto the street and was heading towards us. We ran as fast as we could all the time hoping the car wouldn't catch up to us. When we got to the street where we lived, we ran down it but our house was in the middle of the street and I was sure they were going to catch up to us. When we got near our house, we both noticed that our mom was standing on the top of the front steps to our house. We ran up to our mom screaming to her,"Mom, mom someone just tried to kidnap us." She looked at us in disbelief, but just then the black car turned onto our street and drove right by our house. We said, "Mom, that's the car! See, it's driving by us right now! Call the police!!! Call the police!!!" The black car continued down the street until it got to the end of it then it turned right and disappeared. We continued to tell our mom to call the police but she said that we were just making the whole thing up and then she said she wasn't going to call the police because she didn't want to bother them with our nonsense. You can not imagine the trauma that is created when your own mother doesn't believe you after you tell her someone just tried to kidnap you. To this day I get upset whenever I think about it and I wonder whether those two creeps kidnapped some other little boy or girl because my mother wouldn't call the police and report the incident so we could give them a description of the 2 creeps and their car. BTW, it wasn't until I got much older that I finally saw someone who looked similar to them when I saw some men and women selling flowers and reading fortunes on the street. they were what we used to call by the exonym "gypsies" which I later learned was a pejorative for people from Romania.

[True Blue American]

48. Not all Romanians are Gypsies

They roved in bands years ago.

My Grandmother had what they called a Confectionary back then. They would come in a store,spread out and steal. My Grandmother picked up her big butcher knife ,yelling at them to get out! Chased them out of the store!

You did not mess with my Grandmother! what a wonderful Lady she was.

[trickyguy]

39. This all is starting to bring up some bad memories that I thought

I was over. But reading this thread has brought back the separation
that I experienced as a child being kidnapped by my father - who had
WE visitation rights - and with my sister both being taken away from my mother
who had legal custody. He did this in broad daylight with help from a relative.
He kept my sister and I from seeing my mother until my grandfather died and we
were taken to the funeral. Not able to see him while he was alive.
Then I didn't see my mother for about four years of my childhood except the one
time she came to my school and saw me in the principals office.

I really had kind of forgotten about all of that but this is making it real again.
And it's a terrible feeling.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

41. I want to thank everyone for their stories.

I have two sons. One was an escape artist, and would elude me when we were out shopping. Once, after searching an entire mall (Oak Park Mall in Overland Park, KS, for those of you who know it) I found him in front of the magazine rack at the B. Dalton's (this was nearly thirty years ago) calmly looking at magazines. The staff told me they'd called mall security. I snatched my son, hustled him home, and didn't go back to the mall for six months.

My older son didn't wander away from me, but one memorable incident took place in a grocery store when he was perhaps three years old (a year or more before escape artist younger son was born). He threw his arms around the legs of the man in front of us in line and exclaimed, "Daddy!" The man in question took one look and began laughing. He was African American. My son is white. Other than being male and a lot taller, there wasn't much similarity between this man and my son's father. I was horribly embarrassed at the time, and in retrospect I very much appreciate that man's amused tolerance of the situation. I sometimes offer that story as proof racism is learned.

I do not want anyone reading this to think I am in any way trivializing what's going on currently with the separation of children from their parents at the border. It's completely wrong and there will be a special circle in Hell for those who are doing this.

[firstwife]

43. I was left "home alone"

at the age of 4 1/2, my parents took my 4 siblings and I to a family friends’ home in Chesterton, IN, to pick up them and their 2 kids to go to the Michigan City Zoo. They all piled into the cars and left, not realizing I was still in the house. I came outside and they were gone baby gone. To this day, I have extremely vivid memories of the ordeal. Like it happened last week. When they got to the zoo and realized I was not with them, they freaked. This was in 1960, so no cell phones. The neighbors found me crying in the front yard and took me into their home. My parents had called the IN State Patrol who sent a trooper to the house. The terror I felt at being separated haunted me for years and definitely altered my sense of security, as I was also a tiny child and very shy. So my heart aches for each one of those babies, because they are all someone’s babies. They will never forget this trauma. God damn Trump’s soul to hell, and all the souls who aided and abetted him.

[True Blue American]

47. When I was about that age, maybe a couple of years older,

I climbed down off the Merry Go Round at the State Fair. My parents were on the other side trying to get to me. I was hysterical.

[tulipsandroses]

54. I think many of us have a story of looking away for a second or two

while in a store and not seeing our kid or as a child not being able to find our parents in a store. Its been a tough week. I have cried almost daily for these kids and their parents. My son is a grown man. In his mid twenties. He's faced crisis as an adult and I've cried even though he was a grown man and there was nothing I would not have done in that moment of crisis for him

I cannot imagine the horror of never being able to see my child again, never being able to touch him, hug him, comfort him, watch him smile, realize his dreams, tell him son it will be okay. What kind of monsters are these?

I said in another thread, Guys, I am seriously thinking about being a foster mom- perhaps adoption if there are children left over from this tragedy that cannot be reunited with their family.

[RainCaster]

55. This is the GOP's idea of family values

Never forget that