The Atlantic

A Stranger Helped My Family at Our Darkest Moment

I met Lisa when my son went over a waterfall.
Source: Peter van Agtmael / Magnum

I don’t know how to say it except to say it. It sounds like something from a movie, or like the paranoid nightmare of an overprotective parent—but it is what happened.

I saw my 8-year-old son go over a waterfall.

At this point, before I tell you more, I need to tell you that he’s fine. Because when I tell this story, I can see people’s faces contort as they conjure up horrible outcomes. After all, falling off a waterfall seems like a thing you wouldn’t walk away from unscathed—like a thing you might not even survive. But it wasn’t a huge fall.

It was the middle of August. We were on vacation. We had canceled our plans to fly to Wyoming, because of the pandemic, and instead drove from our home in Washington, D.C., to New Hampshire. We wouldn’t see friends or family—it would be just me, my husband, and our two kids. A

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