The time I almost died.

Everyone, I suppose, has a moment when their childhood ends.  We all share that moment, even if it takes a multitude of forms... that instant when we see death, and understand what it is, what it means, and that it is a simple and unavoidable truth of the human condition. Some people live that instant, and reject the idea immediately - and fight their entire lives against it ... others embrace the moment, and make their peace with it - and hopefully, afterwards, strive for something more than simply existing for ourselves.  After all, we're all united in our struggle against mortality - because it's a struggle we will all eventually lose.  It's just part of being an adult.



Like everyone, I have been shaped as a person by tragedy, tinged with a few precious memories that I hold close to my heart.  Most of those memories (it turns out) were complete bullshit, since over time, our memories are edited by ourselves and others, shaped and changed - and often enough the moments we hold most dear are remembered completely differently by other people involved.

I was five years old, maybe six, I'm foggy on the math, but I can tell you that the first Ninja Turtles movie had come out in theaters (the originals) and I was HEAVILY invested in the cartoon series.  I owned all the vhs tapes.  ALL of them.  I had all the toys I could convince my parents to buy (so like, three).

My parents had just moved to a new town, so or we were in the process of relocating to our new home in a tiny suburban town.  My parents were trying to socialize, maybe trying to help my oldder brother and I meet new people, maybe it was a birthday party or a garden party or something else, I'm not sure.

It was in a ranch style house, single floor, with lots of open spaces between the rooms, at least two sets of patio doors leading out onto the pool deck (in-ground pool, classy) - there was lots of brown wood paneling in that house, I remember very clearly running between rooms and having the walls remain a constant but strangely interesting shades of fake-brown.  Stuff that children notice.

I was outside on the cement pool deck, standing, or walking, I can't remember- but I was outside. There was a face painter there, or someone who was painting kids faces in a haphazard and indicental sort of fashion - they obviously were not a professional, if you catch my drift... it looked like most of the kids accidentally ran into a stack of damp paint cans and decided a totally white face with black spots really DID fit their definition of a unircorn, or those random blue stripes on a yellow face really DID look just like a tiger.  I digress.

I had my face painted entirely green, with a single wide, red stripe across my eyes - because being obsessed with the ninja turtles I wanted to have my face painted as Raphael.  Again, unclear on the details here, maybe I had a ninja turtle face painted on my cheek or something?  either way, there was green and red paint on my face, that much is sure.  I was out on the pool deck, stooped over,  bent over or maybe even just standing.. but I lost my balance and ended up falling into the deep end of this pool.

I don't remember much with any clarity.  I remember  being scared, I remember be panicked.. but the water got into my lungs so quickly that panic quickly vanished all together.  It was scary how fast the  panic was gone, and how quickly the quiet resignation set in.

The water flowed into my lungs, up my nose and in an instant I was full of water - lungs and stomach and tiny throat, all filled with harsh chlorine liquid that burned my eyes and the inside of my sinuses.

I remember splashing twice, my head bobbed above the surface - the first time I managed to push myself far enough out of the water to suck in a last gasp of air, and the second time I only managed to breach up to my eyes... I couldn't force myself above the surface, I didn't know how to swim yet.  I can remember with crystal clarity that second bob up to the surface, because it was the first time I had desperately remembered wanting and needing to breath, and not being able to.  Instead I only inhaled more pool.  I could not swim at the time, although I learned shortly thereafter - so my attempts at swimming and floater were more like I was trying to fight back the water - like if I pushed down hard enough against it I could find enough purchase to make it back to the side of the pool.

But I did not, I floundered for a brief second and then I was under the water, descending.

I saw the surface of the pool slipping away above me, my little hands grasping upwards , trying to grab at it like .. like the surface was the edge fo a cliff, and if I could just JUST get my fingers over the lip I would be ok.  But I kept falling, and it kept getting futher away, and I saw green and red face paint disolving off my cheeks and into the water around me, swirling upwards as quickly as I was sinking down, clouding the water around my little fingers.  Fully clothed, wide eyed, mouth open, I sank like a stone.

It felt like a long time, it was probably an instant, a few second or maybe 20 - but in that yawning moment I knew - KNEW - in my heart, this is what it felt like to die.  I was drifting away, deeper and deeper, further and further away.

It's hard to describe, but as I drifted down and my vision started to go dark, it felt like my whole life was happening at that moment ... like nothing I had done before then had even happened, and that sinking into that pool was my entire existence, start to finish.

A hand shot into the water, and grabbed me by the scruff of the neck.  They hauled me out of the pool and plopped me back down on the hard dry cement, as I coughed and sputtered and wretched up water.  I appologized a bunch of times after I threw up water all over the ground.  I never got their name, never remembered their face, have no idea if it was a man or a woman, but someone saved me that day and I never got to really say thank you to them.  I was a tiny child, and someone saved my fucking life, probably without thinking about it ... and I can't even remember if they were a man or a woman.

No one else cared.  Even though it was at a party, surrounded by people and adults, and other kinds - I managed to fall into the pool completely unnoticed, except for this one lone person who saw me go in.  No one shouted, no one was alarmed ... because no one saw it happen.  It was like it had never happened at all, everyone was completely unaware, and happily chatting away inside or on the front lawn.

I remember walking back to my parents, wet and cold, unable to explain what had just happened to me, unable to let them know that I had just almost died, right then, in the pool.  My parents were upset that I was soaking wet and could not provide an explanation as to why. We went home shortly afterwards.

It was stunning to me me then, and now as well.  No one cared.  No one saw.  No one noticed, except for one single person, who didn't ask for thanks, who said nothing to my parents, and who's face I will never remember.

I owe my life to a stranger and I can never thank them.

I suppose this shaped me more than just about any other event in my life.  In instilled in me a quiet resolve and instinct to help people, whenever I could.  Without realizing it, I decided to become that one person, the person who wasn't afraid to stop their car to try and help an accident - to assist an elderly person in distress - to help a lost kid try and find their parents.  I'm not a great person, maybe not even a particularly good person, I'm not an EMT, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a medic, or a counselor.

But I do help, whenever I can, whenever the opportunity presents itself to me to act, I try and take that opportunity.

I don't care about praise, or recognition, or even acknowledgment ... because deep down, in my bones and in my soul, I still feel like I'm trying to pay off a debt that I can never pay back, to a person I never met who's face is a mystery to me.  My childhood was over, and although I'm not sure I ever actually grew up, from that moment on, I never felt like a kid ever again.