Drowning

Saturday night our good friend Jesse had a CD release party. He played and sang songs that he wrote during a year in the high desert in New Mexico. His performance includes a plethora of kiddy toys, instruments and sound effects. Then he was joined by some friends :Peter on piano and toy piano, Ben on guitar and bass and Max on drum and trombone. Jesse played a song where he mentioned drowning and my mind went back to a time when I was seven years old.

That day my family was to visit my wife's sister, Jane, at Immaculata Convent, a place where women become nuns. In the morning father gave me a little soldier helmet, army green and only about a half inch in diameter. I put it in my pocket. I remember the vast lawns of the Pennsylvania country setting. My cousins, Jimmy, Johnny and I enjoyed disappearing to another part of the campus. This day we found a resevoir, only about 20 yards long and maybe 15 yards wide. From the outside we could see little frogs sitting and sunning on the concrete rim of the pool. We climbed the metal fence, maybe four feel high, to catch some frogs.

The concrete rim, about 10 inches in width rimmed the rectangle and on each side a metal pipe where water entered. I slipped on this metal pipe and my foot went in, getting both my shoe and the cuff of my Sunday trousers wet. I thought, "I'm really going to get into trouble." As I scooted along the edge once again my foot slipped but this time I lost my balance and slid whole body into the pool. I remember Jimmy and Johnny quickly jumping the fence and running to get help.

I could not swim, but I floundered. My hands pushing the water, somehow bringing my head up now and then for a breath. I must have been successful for sometime in this chaotic attempt to stay afloat because my family was pretty far away as I remember. First my Uncle Matt, the my Uncle Joe arrived and they had a pole they wanted me to grab but I was too far toward the middle. The my dad jumped the fence and dived in. He pulled me to edge and the group all pulled me out. I remember little at Immaculata after that. I was wet. I was afraid they would be angry at me. Soon we headed home. I was convinced that I had ruined everyone's day.

I remember sitting on my bed after I had come home and my dad sitting next to me. I remember my dad saying that when he jumped in that were pipes, not too far below the surface and that he could have been impaled upon them. I reached into my pockets and realized that I had lost that little soldier helmet. I told my dad that I was disappointed that I had lost it. He said, "I thought I lost you."

I had no feeling of impending death, as far as I can remember. A child lives in the now, atleast a child of seven. Yet I remember a time in my childhood several years later when I thought I was going to hell. Then I feared death, for I feared that I would spend eternity suffering. Imagine that. More about that issue in some other blog.