Muddy River and Child

Searching for some beauty yesterday, I landed on Liberty Street in Manhattan, a block south of a lively Happy Hour, a block west of the hole that is the World Trade Center, and a block east of a children's playground next to a swollen, muddy Hudson River. As I arrived, the police were starting full-on hunt for a child who may have been thrown into the river strapped to his stroller.

There was a police helicopter loud and beating the water just off the Esplanade where divers were suiting up. A stretcher had been pulled close to the railing, and the police were starting to manage the deepening crowd of joggers and dogs and children from the playground. They cordoned off a staging area for emergency workers who were still arriving.

As I watched the water and the stretcher and the faces of the people around me, a boy with red hair and freckles ran up to a young cop and asked him what was going on. "Oh nothing," he said. "They're shooting a movie." And the boy ran back to his family, smiling. I am sure he went home and told his friends about the very cool movie that was made in their neighborhood tonight.

The cop turned and said "No way I'm going to tell him." But he told the man next to me. And we all looked back at the stretcher and the divers and the awful water, muddy from storms the night before.

I remembered that cops and reporters are exposed to things like this all the time. And as I stood watching the emergency workers, I could see horror flicker into the faces of the younger ones, while the older ones seemed more focused and quiet. And I wondered how many were stationed in the area back in 2001.

I went into the City specifically looking for the Camino de Paz labyrinth at the foot of West Street in Battery Park where Quakers meet on Thursday nights in warm weather. Sally has spoken lovingly of it and whenever she does, I'm sure I know exactly where she means, but each time I've tried to attend, I've gotten lost and frustrated. Tonight I ended up at a formal boxwood garden next to Liberty Street which a cop assured me was the labyrinth I was looking for.

Unable to be still, I walked the scattered edge of the crowd, looking for my Quakers, winding past dog leashes and many children in many strollers, praying someone would find that one stroller, and one mother's child, and then everyone could go home, hug their families and share a warm meal. And I wondered if people know just how much another person may wish for a child in their lives and how deeply blessed they are if they have one.

As I started to leave, a man walked up to me with a baby in a papoose on his chest; his wife stepping to my side.

He leaned in to ask me over the roar of the helicopter "Maybe a lot of people have asked you, but do you know what happened?" His baby's downy face was close to mine, smiling, and I was breathless.

And I wept for a second, caught my voice and tears, and told him, repulsed at the words, and grateful his baby was too young to understand.

And I turned again, and starting walking back south to the subway at Bowling Green, unwilling to try to cross the World Trade Center site for a closer subway uptown.

On the train out of Grand Central, I called my dear friend, Liz. She asked me if I had read the Harry Potter books and explained that down at Liberty Street tonight we were in the presence of a Dementor - an entity that completely sucks the happiness out of a place. She agreed I probably needed some prayer and a hot bath. And then she caught me up on the lives of her husband and teenage children.

Later that night I called the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner of Public Information and explained that I'm not with the media anymore, but know them because I once published a newspaper in Northern Manhattan. I know they are the only source of breaking police news in the City.

The detective told me that the reports are unconfirmed about whether a child was in the stroller or not. One witness said the stroller was open; another said the stroller was closed. The search had been called off for the evening but would resume in the morning.

So I have been sitting on this post, wondering whether I further the Dementor by telling the story, as it can now suck a little happiness out of anyone who reads it. Ben Franklin advocated a free press, but warned that a publisher has a responsibility for the welfare of his readers.

On the other hand, it is good to know that children may need extra care because people can do evil things. And maybe mothers know that is where prayer and meditation come in - to still the Dementor so that we can wisely see how to help.