D2J

It’s taken me almost a week to do this post. Usually I write at night. This subject has the high likelihood of getting me riled up before bedtime. Sleep is like a currency with young children in the house. Every activity after 10 pm is a costly transaction, so it better be worth the risk.

Here are the facts. After my son’s preschool let out for the summer, some friends hosted a pool party at their home. I’ll pause here to say that everybody’s ok. The event was nice, and the host took care to make sure it was safe. Towards the end of the party, most of the families had left and there was more room in the water. I allowed my son to climb atop a giant inflatable duck that had been brought into the pool from the deck. He was on it for about a minute when it capsized.  In less than two seconds he disappeared under the water, beneath the yellow winged air-mattress. I charged into the pool in my clothes and pulled him out. I’d been hovering. He was in the shallow end where he could touch. But the duck had rolled him flat onto his back. He was pinned. He can’t swim.

“Very little in the world happens ‘suddenly,'” an art history T.A. wrote in the margin of one of my college papers. With his red pen he’d circled the word in a sentence I’d written about Picasso. Many times I’ve wished to rebut his argument. Don’t families live in the world? Because a lot can happen suddenly with them.  In the time it takes to text “LOL” from a poolside chaise, a small child can sink under the surface like a stone.  Three years ago I saved a toddler at a crowded city pool. He was being held under the water by a ten-year-old stranger. A bully.  The toddler’s mother had two other young sons, and had turned her attention briefly to them. “Don’t EVER do that again, do you understand me?” I screamed at the assailant. The baby’s face was deep red when I lifted him out of the shallow water. His mother said his name was Jesús.

The pools are humming with children. Among their ranks are those who can’t swim and those who are just learning. I wonder if their parents swing wide like me. Do they try to project ease as they hop around continuously to remain within arm’s reach?  “We haven’t lost one yet!” I overheard a swim coach say to a parent whose son was starting a group lesson with mine. “See, they know what they’re doing,” I feebly reassured myself. Then I scooted closer to the pool’s edge.

Danger and Joy are the true elements that compose water. For me, the ratio is 2:1, like Hydrogen and Oxygen. Reversing that ratio is one of my Ten Commandments of Parenthood. “Thy Children Shall Swim Like Fish.” What I need is one of those creation/evolution symbols for the back of my car. With goggles on it.