Brothers

Brothers

Marc Brown once said “sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero,” and I know with absolute certainty that he is right. I am blessed enough to have two brothers, and they are both my favorite people in the world. I get along with my eldest brother best, and sometimes it feels like we're the same person. My other brother and I don't always see eye to eye though, and often we end up fighting and screaming at each other. Even though we're not always close, I know that no matter what, my brother will always be there for me. How can I be so certain? Could I be underestimating our familial bond? I am not. I know that he will be there for me in the future because he was there for me in the past. My brother proved beyond question that he will always rescue me late one summer with a single action: he saved my life.

Anyone who has older brothers (like Marc Brown) can relate to me when I say that my entire childhood can be summed up in two words: keeping up. I had two older brothers, one was 16 months older than me and the other was 4 and a half years older. Even though they were boys, more concerned with Hot Wheelz than Barbie, I still ached to do all the things they did. One of the best examples of this was swimming.

We'd all taken swimming lessons for about the same amount of time. Bailor, my eldest brother, had taken them longer, but as he was always the best at everything, it didn't bother me. In my mind I was just as good of a swimmer as either of my brothers. Sadly, as children often do, I did not consider the fact that my brothers were much stronger than me, a miscalculation that would almost lead to my demise.

Bailor met Garrett when he was five years old, and soon they became best friends. Garrett, lucky boy that he was, lived on Spider Lake, an inland lake not far from our house. Bailor spent most of his summers frolicking in the lake with his friend Garrett, preparing to become the next Michael Phelps (he just didn't know it yet). My other brother, Blair, spent his summers at the state park with our neighbor, preparing to be the next Pamela Anderson from Baywatch (without the personal flotation devices, of course). I, however, spent my summers playing Barbies with my friend Lauren, preparing to be the next...average girl who played with Barbies as a child. Mistake number one. So, even though my brothers and I had the same experience with swimming lessons, my brothers had a lot more practice applying their skills.

Late one particular summer, after many days like the ones aforementioned, Mom took Blair and I over to Garrett's to pick up Bailor. After a lot of pleading on our parts, she agreed to let us take our bathing suits and swim for a while with Bailor and Garrett.
Once we got to Garrett's, Blair ditched me to hang out with the big boys. I, of course, did not find this acceptable, and vowed to find a way to be included. Garrett had a raft that was floating out away from shore, and the boys decided to swim to it. Not to be outdone, I decided to swim after them. Mistake number two.

Being the inexperienced swimmer that I was, it took me a WHILE to reach the raft. By the time I got out there, I needed a rest. The boys decided they were bored and wanted to swim back in (or maybe they just wanted to get away from me, I'll never know the real reason why they decided to leave just as I got there, but I suspect it's the latter). I was out of breath and tired, and I badly needed a rest. But the boys started swimming to shore, and I decided that I had to as well, without taking a breather. Mistake number three.

I was little, very little, and I couldn't swim nearly as well as I thought I could. With each stroke I could feel my little body shutting down, my little lungs screaming for more oxygen, my little limbs shutting down in self defense. My feet were being dragged to the bottom by the water shoes my mom made me wear, but I was too afraid of getting in trouble to kick them off. About halfway between the shore and the raft, I knew it was physically impossible for me to swim anymore. I turned around and floated on my back for a while, and then decided to backstroke the rest of the way to shore. Mistake number four.

Realizing I was losing the battle, I finally kicked off the water shoes. I wasn't worried anymore; the only thing I could think about was getting to shore. I could hear my mom screaming, and it seemed like I wasn't moving at all. I finally flipped over, using the last of my strength, to see how far I was from shore. And then I started to panic.

When I flipped over the first time, I had unknowingly began to swim sideways, parallel to shore, the way you would during a riptide. Well, there are no riptides in Spider Lake, so I was just wasting my energy. As soon as I realized what was happening, I gave up. If I had had any energy left, I would have flailed my arms and legs and screamed. As it was, I was exhausted. I had already swallowed a lot of water and was continuing to do so without respite. I could see my mom screaming and waving her arms from shore, and it was all I could do to keep my head up to watch her. I think part of me knew then, deep inside, that I was drowning, but the child that I was was too innocent to understand. Possibly I believed, after many Sundays spent in Church and Bible school, that the hand of God would come down or something and save me before it was too late. And then, by some miracle, that's what He did.

Blair came out of nowhere. I don't remember seeing him around me, I don't remember hearing him coming. All I knew was that somehow he was there, exactly when I needed him the most. He wrapped his arms around me and, having spent every conceivable ounce of energy I possessed, all I could do was rest my head on his shoulder while he swam me into shore.

After that moment, though, my memory becomes foggy. I remember one of my brothers going back and getting the water shoes, I remember coughing up a lot of water, and I remember my

mom telling me that I wasn't allowed to swim out to the raft anymore. All of this is disjointed. What I remember best is my mom's face, the last thing I saw before I went under, and realizing, somehow, that I knew Blair would save me, and knowing also that he always would.