Drowning Pool

After two days on the road and hours spent unloading, I decided to take the kids to the pool. We had barely gotten wet when I realized I had forgotten my son’s floatation device. I told the kids to stay on the steps as I got out of the pool to text my wife to bring it.

I had not finished composing the text message when I heard my daughter scream. I turned back and saw her trying to keep my son from floating into the deeper area of the pool. The two of them were barely managing to keep his face out of the water. I dropped my phone and I did my best BayWatch moves. I managed to my son to the steps. He was fine. He wasn’t even upset.

“Don’t tell mom,” I pleaded. And, of course, that was the first thing my daughter did when my wife finally made it to the pool. To this day my daughter talks about how she saved his life. Maybe she did.

This was not my son’s first brush with drowning under my watch. There was an incident a few years earlier with a not-so-lazy lazy river and a forgotten life vest. I was starting to notice a pattern. I made a mental note to be more alert, because, apparently, man-made bodies of water were out to get my son.

We were off to a questionable start.