Awe

[If you're wondering what all this has to do with emerging kids...it's story telling]

One of my most awe-struck moments was this. The kids took swimming lessons every summer with the city summer rec program which, as a former life-guard/swimming teacher, I loved and rave about this program. End of advertisement!

A certain 5 year old was learning to swim in water a little too deep for her to stand. Every day she worked and worked and worked. She put her face in the water. She kicked. She swam about 6 feet every single day and no matter how her teachers worked with her to try to get her to lift her head and breathe and keep swimming it was to no avail. She held her breath for about 6 feet and that was all. All of the other kids swam most of the way across the pool.

One day the guards promised a balloon to every kid who could swim across the pool alone. Sure enough this little girl rose to the challenge. This was a child I thought I knew well. We all looked at each other sure that she was setting herself up for a major disappointment. If a child didn't swim the distance, they didn't get the balloon. No exceptions!

So it's time for this little girl to take her turn. She holds on to the side, takes a deep breath, and kicks and flails and kicks and flails and lifts her head out (no one knows if she actually took a breath). Kicking and splashing more than a class of ten kids, didn't she make it across that pool? Beaming, I might add, and still beaming when they gave her the balloon. She was so proud of herself! I was in awe. I was in awe.

She never swam all the way across the pool again until the following summer but...on one tiny scale in the universe, it was awesome.

(c) Margie Hillenbrand