Not Just Another Day at the Pool

Regrettably, Sunday was the last day our neighborhood pool would be open for the summer. We eat, sleep and breathe the pool in the summer. I can't help it. It's how I was raised. Growing up, my mom would pack snacks and a lunch and haul all four of us and our garb up to the neighborhood swimming pool from the time it opened until we saw my dad's car pull back into the subdivision that evening. We napped there, read there, ate there and of course swam there. We were tan like nobody's business. In fact, I'm not even sure tan begins to cover it. Oh, and those were the days before moms chased down squealing piglets to grease them up in SPF 249 like they do today, so if I seem fanatical about my yearly mole check at the dermatologist, it is not without cause.

So with a wistful grin, I shimmy into my swimsuit one last time. I grab the beach bag and throw in only the essentials - towels, a few bottles of water and the digital camera since I have put off taking the yearly pool pictures of the boys and can no longer procrastinate or I'll be left with a glaring hole in the scrapbook where they should fall.

We troop up to the pool, drag some beach furniture around to "our spot", and giggle as the boys nearly pull off their ears in their haste to get shirts removed. I spotted my friend Becky's car in the parking lot, so I braved the water to get over to where she was calmly enjoying a novel. Unfortunately for her, I was accompanied by Bryant clinging for dear life to my neck like a spider monkey and squealing like only a four year old boy can. We chatted for a while about work and family and then she decided to pack up and head back home.

Bryant and I joined Steve and Brendan in the deep end where they were perfecting the breast stroke. Watch out Michael Phelps! Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a life guard jump into the water. I have only once EVER seen a life guard go into the water and that was when my friend Diane's brother broke his neck diving into the Harvest Bend pool, so I froze where I stood.

The teenage lifeguard went under the water once and came back up empty handed. He quickly went down again and came up with a woman who was limp and unresponsive. How long she had been down, I had no idea. The lilac tinge to her skin was frightening, but the part that chilled me to the bone was that she looked to be about my age and she might be dead. There were shouts of "Do CPR!" and "Call 911." As a mom, I was torn between the fact that I was holding my breath willing her to find hers and the decision of whether or not to shield my two kids from what was going on. After an eternal minute she came around, but her first sounds of consciousness were her daughter wailing "mommy, I want my mommy, what happened to my mommy". The little girls sobs were then joined by the sobs of her mother and nearly of mine.

She looked awake and alert as EMTs took her away, but I cannot get the video reel out of my head, nor the audio of sobs. I find the anxiety and panic with which I struggled in my early twenties threatening to choke my breath once again. I rationalize - this did not happen to you, it happened to her. But that doesn't help. This morning at work I had to say out loud,"Snap out of it!" I tried the only thing I knew to erase the thoughts and images from my mind, the word of God. I pulled a devotional book off of my classroom desk and read through every verse like a teenage girl frantically clawing through her closet. Romans 12:2 stopped me, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is..." I could go for a renewing of my mind.

We ended that day with sno-cones and another dip before giving the pool the last backward glance of summer, but I think I held the boys a little tighter in their night time hugs and I think they held on just a little longer too.