by Andrea Knapp
About 27 years ago I was a young mom of two boys (4 and 3), pregnant with my third child.
I was exhausted. I had gone on vacation to Spain with my boyfriend and his family. We were staying in a tall apartment complex (15 stories) and we were on the 10th floor.
As I already mentioned, I was exhausted and everyone kept telling me to go take a nap and that they’d watch the boys for me so off I went.
I woke up about an hour later and went into the living room and was about to sit down when I looked out to the balcony and there I saw my 3-year-old boy climbing over the balcony railing.
Remember we were on the 10th floor!
Not one person had seen him go out of the door. Not one person was paying attention. Time slowed down and in what seemed like hours but was in fact just seconds I raced to the door and in a split second managed to not startle my son who by now had one leg over the railing and grabbed him and dragged him back in.
Everyone just looked at me like I was crazy and carried on playing cards or whatever it was they were doing. I couldn’t believe it.
Not one week goes by that I don’t ever think how close we were to losing him and the utter astonishment of how not one person other than myself was bothered in the slightest.
When the vacation was booked I wasn’t made aware of the fact that it was a high storey building and to this day I want to slap them all and say “what were you thinking?”
Out of all the bad memories I have in my head this one is the one that I wish I could erase.
I sometimes cry just thinking about it.
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My name is Andrea Knapp, a 48-year-old professional photographer.
I have 3 kids and almost 5 grand kids.
I travel a lot. I am not religious and I love to laugh and sing.
