I'm free!

Jenny and I ended up at a pool Sunday. She'd been at our house, where we danced the morning away with the kids, then I said I was headed to the pool to do laps. She wanted to come. I explained that I was going to lap swim- not play with her. She still wanted to go and had the $5 to get in. Even when her brother couldn't go, she still insisted that she would enjoy being in the pool even if I didn't play with her.

I did my laps, feeling somewhat guilty, but decided I could still have my time and be considerate of her by playing with her after. We hung out in the shallow end with her new friend. (I love how kids make friends wherever they go- a good lesson for adults). Then she told me she wanted to jump into the deep end, but was afraid. I learned that she had never been off a diving board.

She is not an excellent swimmer. Lots of people from poorer families cannot swim well. There are no swimming lessons, camps, sports, organized activities, classes or music lessons when money is an issue. So we worked on her floating and her backstroke some. But she could make it far enough to jump in the deep end and make it to the side, so we moved on.

At first we jumped in holding hands at the 6 foot, then progressed 10 foot, 12 foot. I tried to convince her once she was jumping and didn't touch the bottom that it didn't matter how deep it was, it would be the exact same, but she could look and see that it was deep and that produced all kinds of terror.

Eventually I got her to jumping in by herself. I told her to count to three and yell "I'm free" while jumping. It was awesome to see her soaring through the air. While she was facing her fear, I thought I should face mine too- diving off the diving board. I've always had a good excuse not to, since you can't go off the diving board with goggles on and I wear contacts, which means I'd need the goggles in the water. But that day, I didn't have my contacts in and I was pretty much blind- which was both a problem and advantage on the board. It was hard to tell where the surface was to dive into, yet it looked less scary not seeing all the detail.

I got on the board and remembered being Jenny's age doing the same thing. It was very scary. She kept walking on, then off, on and off. I had to suck it up and just go if I was to show her how to do it courageously. I cast off fear and went for it. It was amazing. What a thrill! What freedom! (And a little pain where I'd slapped my forehead with the water's surface, I tucked it in better the next time!)

I got to watch Jenny go off the side of the board, which the kind lifeguard eventually put a stop to (kinda dangerous). We were trying to coax her off the end, time was running out as the pool was about to close and while we were looking for my lost earing, she just went for it and flew off the end of the diving board. You should have seen her smile! She jumped off a half dozen times before they closed up. It was incredible and such a privilege for me to be there for this momentous leap for her and me.

We will always share the memory of that special experience.