One of the worst things any Mother ever has to endure...seriously, grab the tissues

Yesterday, afternoon I sat down to type an e-mail to my husband and Dar said he wanted to go outside to throw the ball for Cinder, my parent's 6 yr old black lab. Typical request, he does this about 10 times a day out here and usually on his own. Both Louis and I as well as my parents have emphasized to Dar not to go into the woods by himself and he never has. However, yesterday Dar and Cinder apparently went into the woods to look for the ball that Dar threw and Cinder couldn't find. About 10 minutes after Dar and Cinder went out, my mom went outside to weed, they usually come running anytime they hear the tractor turn on, so I assumed they were with her. It wasn't for another 15-20 minutes until I went outside to talk to mom when, not seeing them with her, I asked and she said she hadn't seen them. It only took me about 2 minutes of frantic searching in the immediate areas around the house to know they were gone. I was quickly becoming hysterical, the most obvious answer was they had gone into the woods and my instincts told me in which direction, I immediately dropped to my knees in my parents burn field and prayed with every fiber of my being that we would find our son. I didn't fully understand that saying until yesterday. Unfortunately I don't know the property or the lay of the land, I felt utterly helpless because I knew if I went into the woods I quickly would have become lost myself. Mom had the sense to call 911 while I jumped in the truck and made a quick sweep of the very dangerous highway to eliminate that as a possible outcome of destination. Once the Loudoun County Sherriff arrived he made a thorough sweep of the house just to make sure and calmed me down through my first ever hypervetilation episode. I couldn't breath as I tried to tell him what had happened, timing, and likely direction. He only made matters worse for me by commanding me to stay at the house in case Dar found his way back. They asked us to stay out of the woods as it would confuse the scent for the bloodhound that was in route to track him down. Mom had already run down to the creek that runs through the back of the property thinking that they had found it and that Dar was enjoying himself with his favorite thing, throwing rocks in water. Alas, he wasn't there, but she heard some branches cracking under foot to her north, she called out and neither Dar or dog answered and she headed towards it and no deer ran away, she felt compeled to follow but knew I was loosing it back at the house waiting for help. We had three deputies, 2 runnig the highway in opposite directions, and 1 walking the creek, and one LT. running point from our driveway. Mom had just taken Dar's photo to both the Lt and the dep. that was walking the creek when she realized, he's in the woods, and you are going to have to kill me to stop me from looking for my grandson. She went back to the spot she had been before because she felt she needed to follow the sounds she had previously heard. She did, and they led her to our son. She crossed a road, a creek and climbed a 30 foot embankment to find Dar sitting in the middle of an old logging road crying for mommy. The dog was no longer with him. We made the mistake of calling for the dog to come, before I realized that she would immediately head back and Dar probably wouldn't have been able to keep up with her. My mother called me to tell me she had him but wasn't sure where she was, and that she was utterly exhausted. She had pratically ran that half mile to get him, and of course would not put Dar down. As we hung up I turned around to cinder's barking and saw her running up from the creek bed. Mom made it back to the highway and then the sherriff picked them up and brought them home. Dar made this journey through what normally is his nap time and only managed to suffer minor scrapes on his legs. Fortunately he doesn't seem to be traumatized by the endeavor, not sure I can say the same for me, he was right back to jumping, running, and playing around as soon as we got him in dry cloths. Last night I was expecting him to have nightmares but he curled into my side, told me his legs weren't hurting him anymore, he was worried about me, he was scared, but he was safe, and he loved me. Then he promptly fell asleep, and remained fairly nightmare free. He whimpered at one point in the night but I put my hand to his face and he settled back down. I was not nearly as able to sleep. I am not one to excercise a great deal, I tone, but I don't build endurance. When I initially realized he was gone, I was running as fast as I could go for about a solid 15 minutes, and half of that was up steep inclines. My body was aching all over enough to not let me get comfortable and between that and the tears I didn't sleep as well as Dar. Neither Dar or I want to be very far from each other today, as I'm sure you all can understand. As helpless as I felt, it was much worse for Louis who, being 8 hours away, couldn't do anything to help find his son except wait for news. Luckily the ordeal only lasted for two hours. My mother found him before the bloodhound even made it to the house, it would have been another 15 mintues before the K-9 unit would have arrived. Considering the extreme possible outcomes we were tremendously blessed. We also had an amazing response from my parent's neighbors. One gentlemen came out and started looking through the woods in his crocs and boxers. Another was massing a search party on 4 wheelers and was heading our way. The police had the dog on the way and choppers on standby. Everyone was determined to find him before nightfall. Thanks be that none of that was necessary. I can't tell you how grateful I am that my mother was close enough to the spirit to listen and to follow the promptings she was given even though she was upset. I am afraid to say that I was too overwhelmed to do more than pray, my emotions were too loud to hear anything still and small.