Suburban Goddess

Yesterday, on Mother’s Day, I had the worst experience I’ve had to date as a mother.

Alex & I went to a neighbor’s house for a Mother’s Day pool party. I’m always a little leary of Alex around water (thanks to the movie “Ray,” another piece of useless pop culture stuck in my head.) Yesterday was no different. The pool had two “beach entrances,” shallow areas that lead to a steep and sudden drop-off. I don’t allow Alex to go in the water if I’m not in it, so I made sure I was always within an arm’s reach of her.

She played for almost an hour without incident. One of the fathers who was there made a comment about “coddling” her, since I would hover around her obsessively. But a few moments later, the reason I hover became frighteningly clear when Alex slipped from the ledge and went under.

I can’t describe the feeling to you. If you’re a mother, you just KNOW it. But in that split second, time seemed to go into slow motion. I was sitting on the shallow part, and had to move to the ledge, maybe all of four feet. Within that second, she was completely underwater, her arms splayed out, and by the time I reached her (another second), her eyes were wide open, looking straight up from beneath the water as she sank quickly.

There was no dramatic splash. No moment where everyone panicked. Nobody else even saw it, and there were over a dozen people in the pool, kids RIGHT NEXT TO HER. I reached down and yanked her up quickly. It all happened so fast she didn’t even have time to breathe any water in her lungs. No sputtering or coughing. A few seconds later, she was perfectly fine, laughing and splashing again with the other children in the shallow part of the pool.

It took everything I had not to scoop her up and take her home RIGHT THEN. But I didn’t want to make a big scene and scare her. But I did make a mental resolution to NEVER bring her near the water without some kind of floaty thing attached to her body, but even then, I will NOT take my eyes off her. Nobody else was paying attention; what if I hadn’t?

If people are wondering why I’m putting my parental ineptitude on the Internet for the world to see, I’ll tell you; it happened in a split second. If I wasn’t such an obsessive mother, I don’t even want to THINK about what could have happened. Because the “what if’s” will drive you insane, and make you want to lock your child up in a padded room so nothing could ever happen to them. But it’s SO important, as a parent, that you realize how DANGEROUS a pool can be.

The image of my daughter beneath the water, her beautiful blue eyes looking up as her limbs weighed her down helplessly is forever burned into my brain. It makes me physically sick every time I think of it. I had nightmares about it. I am thankful that when I pulled her up, that she was able to wrap her tiny arms around my neck and hold me tightly. I cannot imagine what it must be like for parents who have to pull their lifeless children from a pool.

When we got home, she was throughly exhausted. I lay on the couch, and she climbed up next to me, putting her little head against my shoulder and falling sound asleep. As I watched her tiny chest rise & fall with each breath, I thanked God for making me a mother. She is the most incredible thing to ever enter my life. And I will never, ever take that for granted.

This entry was posted on May 14, 2007 at 5:51 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.