NONE ARE LEFT ALONE
The date was August 28, 2016. My sweetheart JoAnn and I were coming home a little after 8:00 pm when we were stopped by a red light at the intersection of Redwood Road and 13400 South in Riverton, Utah. The sun had gone down and it was dusk. While sitting at the light I noticed Colleen, an elderly neighbor, walking toward the intersection and then turning north on the sidewalk along Redwood Road. I knew this was trouble. Colleen suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease and based upon our previous experiences with her, we suspected that she had probably left her house unbeknown to her husband and would not likely be able to find her way back. When the light turned green we went through the intersection and then made a u turn to follow her. We pulled up alongside her and Jo rolled down her window and asked her if she needed a ride. She insisted that she did not. Jo then started to open the car door and told her she needed a walk and that she would walk with her. Colleen made it very clear she wanted to walk alone and began walking faster. I called her husband and asked if he knew she was gone. He didn’t. He said she had insisted there was something happening at the church that night and he’d tried to convince her there wasn’t. Apparently that wasn’t good enough for her and she was headed there alone. While we were on the phone with him, Monte and Rachelle, also neighbors, saw her and also attempted to help her but with the same result. Monte did a u turn on Redwood and was headed back to tell her husband. We watched her from a discreet distance. To our horror, instead of turning east toward the church, she turned west to cross a busy Redwood Road at dusk in a black dress. She was very hard to see. The crosswalk is at the top of a slight incline coming from the north, making it difficult for drivers to see someone in the crosswalk until the last moment. One person we know was struck and killed in that very crosswalk some years ago. We could see the cars coming toward her and apparently she did too because to our surprise, she broke into a pretty good run. She made it across just as a car zoomed through the crosswalk. We were so relieved. She then started back to the south. We turned around and pulled up to a discreet distance behind her. Jo got out of the car and said she would catch her and walk with her. We both underestimated how fast Colleen could walk. Perhaps we should have placed more weight on the fact she ran across Redwood Road. Jo’s feet, back, and arthritis make running virtually impossible for her, but when she realized that she couldn’t catch Colleen by walking, and not wanting to use the car to catch her, she began to run. I knew that every step was excruciating for her, but she just kept running until she caught her. I knew that the reason she kept running to catch her was because she was so worried about what could happen to Colleen if she didn’t catch her. From my vantage point, it was as if the Savior was running to catch Colleen. It was such a Christlike offering of love and sacrifice. She did catch her and put her arm through Colleen’s and walked her safely back across Redwood Road at a traffic light controlled crosswalk and then back home. Monte and Rachelle were there getting her husband into their car to take him with them to see if they could coax her into the car and return home. In each of their lives I saw the Savior’s example reflected. I felt close to Him and each of them as I watched all of this unfold.