We sat at the kitchen table, my grown son, Travis, and I. Reminiscing had turned into his confessing his boyhood transgressions.
“Remember that time you found beer cans in our garbage?” Travis said. “I told you the neighbor asked to use our recycling bin, but that was really me and my friends. We drank a few beers.”
I shook my head, but I knew what a blessed mother I was. When Travis was young, I kept a close eye on him. We lived in the most crime-ridden section of Oakland. I took no chances. I drove him to and from school in Alameda, where he was safer. I made sure he had plenty of after-school activities so he was too busy to run the neighborhood streets. I taught him how to act if he was confronted by the police. I had to be protective, paranoid even, raising a young black man in a city with one of the highest crime rates in America.
Fortunately, Travis was an exceptional student. Popular at school, the star running back of his high school football team. He excelled in wrestling, judo and archery. I breathed a sigh of relief when he went off to college. We’d made it! Now we could laugh about sneaky things he did that I hadn’t a clue about.
“Remember the night of my eighteenth birthday?” Travis asked. He leaned in, suddenly serious. “I told you I was going to spend the night at a friend’s house. . . .” Remember that night? I’d never forget it. It was one of the strangest nights of my life.
Four three zero nine seven five two. The string of numbers stirred me from a sound sleep. I sat straight up, looked around. Four three zero nine seven five two?
I tried to lie back down, but those numbers kept ringing in my head. Numbers that meant nothing to me. And I was no stranger to numbers. I used to work at the telephone company, and I was very good at committing all kinds of numbers to memory. Medical-record and identification numbers of all my family members, license-plate numbers of passing cars and, of course, lots of phone numbers. But these numbers stumped me. This is crazy, I thought, but they didn’t go away: 4309752 . . . 4309752 . . . 4309752.
It was as if a voice was shouting the sequence inside my head. I grabbed a pen and paper: 4-3-0-9-7-5-2.
Maybe it’s a math riddle? I stared at the numbers, added them up, divided by two, played around with the order. I got nowhere.
“Four three zero nine seven five two,” I repeated aloud. “Four three zero nine seven five two.”
Seven digits, like a telephone number minus the area code. Was it an Oakland number? I scrolled through my mental Rolodex. Four three zero was a telephone prefix in the north side of town, over where my church was located.
I got up. I knew I had a church bulletin somewhere and found one in the folds of my Bible. Sure enough, the church office number was printed smack dab on the front: 430-9752. Was I getting somewhere? No one was manning a church phone this time of night. Maybe someone needed prayer. Urgently.
I had no idea who, but surely God did. I dropped to my knees and bowed my head.
“Lord, somewhere, someone desperately needs you. Cover them with your protection, guide them to safety. Shelter them with your love. Lord, please, take care of them.”
It was a rendition of a prayer I often prayed for Travis. Especially when he would spend the night at a friend’s house near school to make it easier to get to early-morning football practice. Like he was that evening—or so I thought.
“I didn’t spend the night at my friend’s house,” Travis said. “I went to a house party in Oakland.”
What? I’d strictly forbidden him to go to house parties. “I know I shouldn’t have gone—especially to that one,” Travis continued. “Some kids crashed the party.” His friend’s parents turned them away, but they came back with guns.
“They started shooting. Everyone was screaming and running. I didn’t know what to do, Mom. I fell to the floor. All I could think about was whether I’d live to see you again. It’s a miracle no one was killed.”
As hard as I’d tried to keep him safe, all the work to make sure he survived and thrived . . .
That night, I wasn’t there to protect him. But my prayer was.
