On a cold winter morning in a small mountain town in Colorado, a girl stood waiting at the bus stop, watching the flakes of snow drift around her. When the bus came, she stepped on, paid the fare, and ran to the back. “Good morning” she said, sliding into a seat next to her friend, Frida. “Good morning to you!" Frida replied excitedly. Fifteen minutes later, the bus stopped at school, and the two friends hugged before walking off to their separate classrooms. Faun daydreamed of the tea-party she and Frida had planned.
At recess, just as they had set up a “table” on their favorite rock in the schoolyard and Frida was passing out mud pies, Faun’s father came sprinting toward them from the school building. Knowing that something must be wrong, Faun lifted herself up and started walking toward her frantic father. She could clearly hear her father yelling, “Your grandmother! Your grandmother!”
Upon reaching her, he said nervously, “She’s missing. Her wheelchair, I found tipped over in the front of the house. She’s not anywhere.”
“What?” Faun cried. “Where is she?”
“That’s why I came here,” her father snapped. “I don’t know where she is.”
Almost hyperventilating, Frida followed her equally nervous father to his car. A crowd of children followed her. Frida called, “Faun, what’s wrong?”
“It’s Granny, she’s gone.”
“Your poor grandmother, where could she be?”
“I don’t know. I’ll call you.”
Faun hugged Frida, stepped into the car, and they sped away. On the ride to the house, scary thoughts were running through Faun’s mind: “What could have happened? Did she fall and then crawl away, or did someone kidnap her?”
The car screeched to a halt, and she jumped out and ran into her house, glancing at the tipped wheelchair in the front yard. She found her mom sobbing in the kitchen, with Faun’s older brother trying to comfort her. Walking out back, she went over to her favorite trees, a stand of pine in the corner of her yard. Once under the thick branches, she felt calmer.
Noticing some scrapes in the meager snow on the ground leading away under the trees, she yelled for her father. He was immediately with her and saw the tracks too.
“Is it her?” Faun asked.
Shrugging sadly, her father trudged along the tracks. A shout brought Faun after him. There on the ground lay her shivering grandmother.
Faun thought, “As Grandma would say, ‘Fate is kind today. You have found me.’”
“Help me lift her up,” her father whispered, “We have to get her inside.”
Bending down, they carried her through the yard and into the room that her grandma had lived in for the past 9 years.
Even under the blankets, her grandmother was still shivering. While her family called the ambulance and found more blankets, Faun stayed, holding her grandmother’s large, wrinkled hand in her own small, warm hands. Suddenly, her grandmother’s eyes snapped open.
“Are you all right?” Faun asked.
“Oh, Faun, I don’t know.”
Looking at her grandmother’s prone form, memories flooded back to Faun - when they had gone to the County Fair and Faun had gotten lost, then was found by her Grandma. Her grandmother had told her that fate was kind that day and let her be found.
“Oh, Grandma, I don’t want you to leave. Please stay with me.”
“That is a wonderful dream. I wish I could do that for you, but you must let me go. It would be a challenge to fate, Faun.” Her grandma breathed, and closed her eyes for the last time.