It was a Thursday, my day off from my work as a firefighter over in San Jose, but my wife, Peggy, tapped me on the shoulder and woke me from a deep sleep that chilly March morning. “Aidan Burke,” she said. “He’s still missing. He’s been out there all night. His poor parents. They must be worried sick.”
Aidan, a three-year-old kid in our small town in the Santa Cruz Mountains, had become the focus of a community-wide search.
He and his older brother and sister had set out into the forest bordering their backyard late in the afternoon in search of banana slugs, uglylooking critters that thrive in the cool fogs of our redwoods and firs. They were accompanied by the Burkes’ Doberman.
At nightfall his brother and sister and the dog returned, but Aidan had wandered off and was nowhere to be found. “People are coming from all over, Dave,” Peggy said.
I knew how that was, search-and-rescue teams arriving from five counties, volunteers from as far south as Monterey and as far north as Marin. They’d pull in the swift-water folks to check the rivers, thick with spring rains, and choppers with scanning equipment.
I was used to search-and-rescue work from my job. It was part of my training and experience, my more than 20 years with the San Jose Fire Department, but this was right here, so close to home.
“I’ve got to help,” I said. I jumped out of bed and put on my all-weather gear and hiking boots. Peggy got our kids ready for school. I grabbed a water bottle and a granola bar from the kitchen counter, put them in my backpack and kissed her and the kids goodbye.
Not a moment to waste. A storm was rolling in. There could be high winds, mudslides, flooding. It would only get colder and harder to find the boy. Now was our best chance. If he was still out there. I hated to think If he’s still alive.
I drove to the command post and got out of my truck. Emergency vehicles were parked all over, their lights flashing, walkie-talkies crackling. The smell of coffee lingered in the air. A cool gust swept through the crowd. People’s faces looked grim.
“Can’t get a helicopter up in this weather. Too much wind and fog,” someone muttered. “The dogs couldn’t find his trail anywhere,” another searcher said. A dog whined as if agreement.
I told myself that it would be one of those operations where we would be sure to find him through a methodical sweep. We had enough bodies to do it and daylight was on our side now. If we could beat the storm. Aidan had walked off barefoot, but there were no footprints to be found.
I started up the slope behind the Burkes’ house with a team of searchers, all of us evenly spaced to check every square foot of ground. Even so, the thick mist made it hard to see. It started to rain and I kept losing my footing on wet, mossy rocks.
We continued climbing. It was hard to imagine a three-year-old boy, barefoot, without warm clothes, surviving in this terrain.
With each hour, you could feel the discouragement rise. “Aidan! Aidan!” people called. The wind sent our voices flying in the empty air and I began to shiver.
Someone reported that one of the guys had spotted a mountain lion’s paw prints. Not good. I steeled myself to look for signs of blood, signs of struggle.
I followed a deer trail up, my eyes on the underbrush. The trail became narrow and overgrown. It came to an end at a deep ravine. Could he have fallen over? I scanned the ground below. No sign.
I was getting tired and hungry. My stomach growled. I thought of my own kids at school, running around the playground, shouting. I stopped to listen. No one was calling “Aidan, Aidan” anymore. People were starting to give up.
All I could hear was the drip, drip of rain on the branches and the wind blowing through the boughs. Nightfall would come soon. We’d done everything we possibly could. I had been so certain that a team this big, this well organized, would be able to find the boy, dead or alive. But nothing. Not a clue.
I worked my way along the path, feeling lost. There’s one thing you haven’t tried, I thought. I stared at a redwood and thought of the Creator who had formed these trees, raised the wind and the rain, created mountain lions and banana slugs and three-year-old boys.
Praying wasn’t much of a part of my life, but if ever there was a time to pray, it was now. I felt funny but I had to try.
Dear God, you haven’t heard much from Dave Churchill lately, but would you listen to him now? There’s a three-year-old boy lost here in the forest and we need help to find him. Fast.
No beam of sunlight burst through the clouds, but in an instant I was sure that I had been heard. For the first time that day a peace came over me, a deep sense of knowing and being known. I had a premonition of exactly what I needed to do and where to look.
I reversed my footsteps, going right back to the wilderness behind the Burkes’ house, terrain that had been searched and searched for hours.
Part of me said, You’re not going to find a thing there, Dave. Everybody has already looked. And yet, I knew this was the way to go. I couldn’t explain, yet I knew it was true. It was as though someone was whispering in my ear, guiding me.
I walked past the searchers and the cars with their flashing lights. I climbed a dirt road and reached a switchback. The rain was coming down in sheets, but I stopped and listened, listened very carefully.
I heard a sound, the tiniest whimper. I turned in that direction, and there, in plain sight, dressed in a green shirt and tan shorts that blended into the forest, was Aidan Burke, only 300 yards from his home.
“Hey, son,” I said. He raised his arms. “We’ve been looking for you.” I lifted him up. No burden had ever felt so light.
I took the granola bar out of my backpack and gave it to him. He chewed ravenously. I gave him a swig from my water bottle. He was going to survive. I called for help, and others came rushing up the hillside. They’d need to take him to the hospital, make sure he was really okay, but I didn’t doubt it.
People started clapping when they saw Aidan coming down the mountainside, borne aloft, coming home. They made a big thing of me too, how I was some sort of hero, how the firefighter who worked in the big city over the hills had made good in his own small town.
What I had to tell them, what I said as soon as someone from the newspaper interviewed me, was that I could take no credit. It was divine intervention. I said a prayer and that prayer was answered.
Dave Churchill would never be the same again. I gained new strength in going to church, praying regularly for myself and my family and anybody going through a struggle. I’ve learned how to listen to God wherever I can, in the forest, at work, in my car.
And I’ve seen how he always hears. His answer can be a whisper in your ear, an urge to change direction, a nudge of guidance. And it can help you see what you should have seen, what plenty of others missed, what was right there in broad daylight.
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