"Go Home Now"

"Stay away from the pool, Danny," I told my three-year-old as he headed for the backyard to ride his Big Wheel.

"Yes, Mom," he said obediently.

Listening to the sound of his plastic tricycle, I returned to the kitchen, sighing. It was not easy being a widow, and raising two children on my own was often a strain.

I busied myself about the house until something made me stop dead still. I cocked my ear. No sounds of Danny's tricycle.

I rushed to the kitchen window and looked out at the swimming pool. Danny's Big Wheel was bobbing in the water, and there, floating face down, was Danny.

Desperately I pulled Danny out of the water and tried to administer CPR, but his body was cold and his face was gray. Then the sirens, the paramedics, the helicopter whisking Danny off to the hospital, where he lay in a coma. Finally, after my long, prayerful vigil Danny opened his eyes. Soon he was well again, back home playing as usual. But somehow he seemed changed.

One day he blurted out, "Mom, I want to see a picture of my daddy." I realized I had never shown him a picture of his father, who had died before Danny was born. The first photograph I brought out showed my husband and his baseball team.

Danny looked at it for a few moments. Then he pointed to one of the coaches.

"That's my daddy," he said.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"He talked to me in the hospital before I woke up. He said, 'You must go home now. Mommy needs you.'"

I looked at the man he'd pointed to; the father he had never seen.