The dispatcher initially thought the call was a prank and would have hung up if he didn’t hear the note of despair in the boy’s voice.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“I’m six, sir, can you help me find my mom?
I’m very worried she won’t be able to find her way,” Sam said.
John Lewis thought about his response for a few seconds before giving it. He knew it would be cruel to awaken the boy to the truth, but he also could not hang up without being helpful somehow.
“If you want her to find her way home, why don’t you try writing her a short letter every month and sending them to her using red balloons? When she sees them, she’ll know that she is being missed and will follow the trail of balloons.”
After he hung up, little Sam was excited that he had at last arrived at a solution.
Later that day, he wrote a letter to his mother explaining how the house looked without her. He hoped it would make her want to come home more because she hated seeing mess.
Sam waited for an answer, but he did not get one. So he wrote another letter the following month, this time describing how sad his father looked because she wouldn’t return, but the same thing happened, there was no response even though his balloons always seemed to soar into the heavens.
When he didn’t get a reply to his second letter, Sam called the police again.
The dispatcher once again calmed him down and urged him to continue writing letters.
After the call, the man asked a favor of his fellow officers. He also did a little research on Sam’s family and reached out to the boy’s father and teachers.
A few days later, a police motorcade pulled up on Sam’s street. Each cop who participated had a single red balloon in their hand, and they all presented it to Sam, encouraging him.
Feeling encouraged by the balloons, Sam wrote another letter to his mother, and this time, he received a reply telling him how much she loved him.
In truth, it was his father who wrote the letters. The man decided that he would keep doing so until his boy was ready to accept his mother’s death.
Source: amomama
