commentary by Patrick H. Moore
Like most clichés, the old adage “a woman’s work is never done” bears more than minimal truth. This is never more true than when the woman in question is a young Texas mother raising seven-year old twin boys and a one-year old baby. Knowing just how much work is involved in raising a single moderately spoiled child, I salute each and every mother who does her best to provide her children with all the love, attention and discipline they need to grow up with a fighting chance of ultimately becoming productive and well-adjusted adults.
Every mother faces endless worrisome moments in attending to her duties. Whether it’s taking the kids to their pediatricians for their annual physicals and making sure they get their shots, helping them with their homework, attending parent-teacher conferences, or even comforting them and supplying then with bandaids when they fall and injure themselves, it’s a big and never- ending job.
One thing a mother probably doesn’t expect, however, is to dash back into the house to grab a baby bottle, and upon returning to the car, to discover that a carjacker has made off with not only the family vehicle, but your three children as well. Yet that’s precisely what happened to Lucia Rozado, a San Antonio mother on Thursday afternoon.
Hilary Hansen of the Huffington Post writes:
Lucia Lozada, their mother, told KSAT that on Thursday afternoon, she was about to drive to church with the boys and their 1-year-old brother when she realized she had forgotten a baby bottle.
She returned to witness her car get stolen — with her boys inside.
“I went back out and I saw him walking and I smiled at him because I know him from around here because he’s always walking up and down the street, and he looked at me and just ran and got in the car and left,” Lozada said.
We can only speculate as to what terrifying thoughts ran through Lucia’s mind as she phoned emergency services and prayed that her kids would survive their ordeal.
I am reminded of the time my daughter vanished when she was five years old. Our Salt Lake relatives were in town and things were a bit chaotic and all of a sudden, I realized that daughter had been uncharacteristically quiet (this was long before she became a sullen teenager); in fact we had not heard a peep out of her.
A quick search of our two-story townhouse revealed no trace of her – she was gone, baby, gone. I’ll never forget the panic I felt as I scoured the neighborhood shouting her name, all the while thinking that she was not outside and that I wasn’t going to find her.
After 20 minutes of sheer hell, daughter turned up. She’d been there all along napping under the stairs completely covered by some cushions we kept there to serve as protection when she and her friends would hang from the stairs and drop.
* * * * *
It turns out that Lucia’s 7-year-old twin boys had plenty of spunk, so much spunk that the neighborhood carjacker-kidnapper quickly realized that whatever his intentions were, they did not include putting up with two lively little monsters who were not at all happy to find themselves in his company.
In fact, the 7-year-old twins, Lucius and Luis, fought back vigorously, using anything at hand including a rubber toy snake that their church-going mother Lucia had hesitated to buy them in the first place, perhaps out of concern that snakes are un-Christian (or is it all too Christian?).
The twin’s determined resistance proved to be more than the kidnapper could handle, and within a few miles of Lucia’s house, he pulled over in front of a Maria Garcia’s house, handing one of them a cell phone and admonishing them to call their mother.
It’s unclear who released the one-year-old from his car seat, but what is known is that the three children knocked on Ms. Garcia’s door in a state of great excitement.
“I got up to the door and the little boy was shaken up and the little boy was saying, ‘They kidnapped us. They kidnapped us!’ and I said, come on in, you’re okay,” said Ms. Garcia.
Then they phoned Lucia and you can imagine the relief that she felt. For her part, Lucia says she forgives the kidnapper and is grateful her babies are back home safe and sound.
“I think god that the guy, you know, he didn’t harm them. He gave them the phone and told them to call their mom. I thank god for that. That he didn’t touch them.”
The boys, however, certainly touched the kidnapper, particularly the twin who was closest to him in the front seat. “I was kicking him. I was hitting him with a snake,” the boy told My Fox Austin.
Although the children were unharmed, Lucia’s car is still missing. The suspect, described as a while male in his early 30, has not been identified. Police say he will be charged with vehicle theft, but they have not yet determined what charges he’ll face in relation to abducting the children.