Beech Tree News Network

My husband, Garey, has several times made the observation, “You’re always jumping into the water to save somebody and you don’t even know how to swim.”  He is speaking figuratively about the way I go out of my way to help people then often find myself in over my head.  I always respond the same way, “There was nobody else standing on the bank.”  Garey uses the analogy, because I literally don’t know how to swim—well, maybe enough to be able to save myself if I happen to fall into a dishpan. 
     My stepmother was a “don’t go near the water till you know how to swim” person.  My dad always bragged about how well he could swim, but since neither of them ever took us swimming, we had little proof of his ability to do so, as well as a great fear of drowning ourselves.
In our early marriage, my fear of water and inability to swim was of deep concern to Garey.  He was always coaxing me into a swimming pool where he would buoy me up with his arms as he shouted encouragements like “you can do it” and “keep kicking!”  It always ended the same way, with me no closer to swimming and him nearly drowned.
    Garey is a very determined sort of guy, so he bought a boat then took me and some friends to Nolin Lake, where he fitted me with a life vest and a pair of skis.  He put a ski rope in my hands and drug me, for the most part face-down,  from one end of that lake to the other while yelling, “Let go of the rope!” after I had fallen and my feet had left my skis several yards behind.  Oddly enough, I emerged from that experience no less afraid of the water than I had been before the undertaking.
    When our kids, Natalie and Nikki, were very young, I took them to the swimming pool as often as I could, because I didn’t want them to grow up as afraid of the water as I am still to this day.  Natalie learned to swim quickly, but Nikki (who is a marine biologist today) was afraid of the water.  It took some coaxing to get her into the pool, but once she conquered her fear, Nikki was the better swimmer of the two. 
    This summer, we took our granddaughter, Sabria, to New Orleans to visit her Aunt Nikki.  We took a day to check out Bay Saint Louis, a beach town in Mississippi, about an hour from where Nikki and her husband Thomas live.  The gulf water is shallow for several yards into the ocean, so Nikki took Sabria, who is already an excellent swimmer, by the hand and started walking with her out into the water.  Sabria wanted to go further and further out, so Nikki kept going. 
    As I watched from the shore—anxious as I am always around large bodies of water—I thought about what Natalie always says to me about her little girl.  “I’m so afraid she’s going to be an adventurer like Nikki and move far away from me someday,” she says.
    “Maybe, she will,” I thought as I watched the two of them.
If she does, Natalie will cry the way I cry when I have to leave Nikki or Nikki has to leave me, but Natalie will have a life she never otherwise would have had if she tries to keep Sabria close to home.  Because of Nikki, I’ve experienced Galveston, Texas, crab cakes, Texas A&M, dolphin rescue networks and cephalopod labs.  I’ve eaten Jambalaya, beignets, and shrimp and rice.  I’ve browsed through the French Market and heard jazz music on Bourbon Street.
 My life is so much richer because I encouraged my daughter in the life she chose.  It hurts to have her live so far away, but it would have hurt more to have her close, but watch her long for something she could never have because of limitations I put on her.  Nikki took me with her, just as she took Sabria into the shallows of Bay Saint Louis.  There’s so much I would have missed out on if I hadn’t had someone to take me along for the ride.
(Note: I never did learn how to ski, but I got very good at driving a boat and pulling other skiers up in the water—must have been my empathy.)