We were at Paine’s Falls on a lovely summer day and I met a girl my age. We were instant best friends, splashing around in the shallow water of the river, gathering good skipping stones and flinging them to sink without a single skip. Our parents, and two or three other families, were in the deep water or up on the rocks of the waterfall or laying on towels on the smooth stones of the bank, wearing cut-offs and bikinis.
I didn’t know how to swim, but most of the water was only ankle-to-hip deep, tiny fish and pollywogs dashing away as we splashed. The only deep part was at the base of the falls, where people liked to jump from the flat surface above. The stone was brushed clean at the point above the deepest pool from all the people running up to jump. I would NEVER. I was scared of heights and had only been able to get within a foot of the edge before running back.
I don’t know why we were playing near the drop-off to deeper water. I suppose kids will always test a dangerous edge, but one minute we were chatting chest-deep, the next my foot brushed through water uninterrupted by river bottom, and I panicked. “Help! Help!” I reached for my friend, who screamed, too. We were both in the deep water, flailing, unable to swim. We were going to die. The surface of the waterfall cliff was just out of reach. I tried flailing toward it, thinking I could hold on to it, but I couldn’t move out of this deep spot. Families and other kids were all around on the riverbank and the stony island behind us, why weren’t they saving us? I seized on one chance, one plan… I grabbed my friend, put my hands on her shoulders, and used her to lift myself higher, shouting loud and clear, “HELP! WE CAN’T SWIM!”
It worked. An adult splashed over to us and pulled us back into the shallows. I was shaking with adrenaline, the near miss of certain death. I looked at my new friend, and she was staring at me with fury. “You tried to drown me!”
“What? No! It was temporary, to get help.”
“We were in the deep, and you PUSHED ME DOWN.” She clung to her father, who lead her away, consoling her.
My dad looked down at me. “How could you do that. Jeez, kid! You were one foot from the edge. THINK, next time.”
“But I didn’t… I mean…” I tried to explain myself, but no one was buying it.
I had, in fact, pushed a scared girl down into the water. Regardless of my self-justification, I had done it to save myself. I had discovered that I was not immune to the essential selfishness of self-preservation. I would drown someone to save myself. I spent years beating myself up about it. Yet, it’s a truism. A drowning man will drag someone down.
We can fight our animal nature, by being aware of it. We can think, and we can avoid situations like that. We can throw the life preserver instead of diving in.
We can learn to swim.
My dad guided me, a hand on my back. I stared down at his ‘river walking shoes’ visible through the water. “Here,” he said, “The first step is to learn to float. If you’re in a situation like that again, just float. Lie back.” And I laid back, looking up at the sunlight twinkling through branches, mourning the friendship newly killed, but determined to float over my father’s big, sturdy hands.
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