Little Girl Makes a Big Splash

My father threw me off the end of the dock. It was his way of showing me that I could swim if I had to.

Maybe this sounds heartless, but it was actually brilliant. He knew the longer a kid worried about swimming, watched other people swimming and having fun, and dreamt each night of drowning, the longer it would take to learn to swim. Ten thousand fears layer up to brick off the part of one’s soul that is daring and carefree.

Better to bust through that wall sooner rather than later.

I remember it. My brother and sister and some cousins were already in the water. My dad was dressed in his gabardine pants and a short-sleeved shirt like he always was. He had street shoes on. He didn’t even own a pair of sneakers, and he wouldn’t have known a flip flop if you put it in his shirt pocket. Besides, that’s where he kept his pens.

He might have been smoking a cigarette. I don’t remember.

Of course, I screamed. Or squealed more accurately. Because part of it was delicious, having everyone stop what they were doing to watch me, and my dad carrying me which was rare and lovely.

I remember the splash and sinking and then flailing about and rising to the top and sputtering and then dog paddling like he showed me back to one of the poles at the end of the dock. Everybody laughed and cheered. It was a triumph in my little four-year-old life.

I was still afraid of other things but not of getting thrown off the end of the dock. I’d conquered that.

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Photo by Jaime Creixems on Unsplash