The Poolside Miracle

Ben was a young boy expressing his first interest in having a swimmer’s body with a six pack and tight buns…No wait, Ben was a young boy whose parents thought that swimming lessons would be a good activity to prepare him for life – maybe it was the same impulse?

[The Gay comes from the father's side, I swear.]

In any case, Ben was signed up for several weeks of swimming lessons in the local pool. I forget if he was “working” for an orange badge or kangaroo club or whatever, but there was a socially recognized goal for this endeavour. [Foreshadowing...] So once a week Ben and his parents would head off to the pool for some physical activity – and Ben loved those nights. He looked forward to them and welcomed them, because it was the only night a week that he got fast food – as a reward for his efforts.

[Ha. Ha. Ha. Ben was the chubsy one. Ben loved him some french fries. Wasn't Ben rolly-poly? Look how tall and slim his brother Stephen is! WE GET IT - THANKS.]

Now insofar as his efforts went – the fast food was more of an open gift from his parents. For weeks he sat on the side of the pool with a scowl on his face. [I know. Hard to believe right? I'm such a peach.] Dad and Mom were bobbing, splashing, blowing bubbles – everything to get him in the pool and do something, anything related to what his instructor was instructing him on. But nothing in the pool, just woohoo MacDonalds, woohoo Wendy’s, etc. on the way home.

[It was Harvey's thankyouverymuch. And besides, it's not my fault that your parenting instincts taught you to reward my negative behaviour. Didn't you guys have some child version of The Dog Whisperer back then?]

After the allotted time for the course, it came to the final week of lessons. As had been planned and exercised many times over, this last session of the course was primarily for the kids to relax, kick back and…pick up their well-earned badges.

Now I would be lying if I said that it wasn’t a disappointment, as a Father, to be sitting on the side of the pool with Ben who had by that point advanced to splashing in toes ankle deep water.

I was ready to begin that first of several archetypically difficult father/son talks explaining that all the other kids would be getting a badge but that Ben would just have to wait a bit – like 10 Million years based on his present performance – before he was ready for his.

Just then, halfway through the class with the clock ticking down, the instructor walked by cheerily announcing that he was off to the office to get the badges. Ben’s ear twitched, his head tilted to one side, he set his jaw and blurted, “I want a badge!” And so I was given no choice but to plunge into the consoling with, “No Ben you don’t get a badge, you did your best, but maybe next time…”

What I hadn’t appreciated was, that Ben wasn’t saying he wanted a badge for nothing – he was saying he wanted a badge! And then, Ben, for the first time that I could recall, expressed his “no ordinary rollercoasteredness”.

He flung himself from the side of the pool and went motionless face down in the water! My first thought was “that little bugger is going to drown himself in public to embarrass his parents for not buying him a puppy” – or something like that – because he had shown no aptitude for the water that I had seen in endless weeks of training.

Just as I was recovering my senses enough to go to his rescue, up popped his head as he sputtered – “That was 20 seconds, right? That’s what I need for the badge, right Dad?”

Before I could confirm or correct him, he dove under the water again, this time reaching the bottom of the pool – first time ever! My head was still considering the “embarrassing drowning motivation” when up he pops again: “There I dove to the bottom of the pool. That is okay, right Dad??”

And so it continued, back float, side kick, 3 meter swim!!!!! In disbelief, the other kids were considering a request for an official ruling on the strength of the pumps and its effect on the velocity of pool currents – but they too were disarmed by Ben’s true enjoyment of the challenge at hand. On and on through the full battery of test: check, check, check.

He had caught us all off our guard. The instructor had to go back to the office to pull an additional badge out of the desk drawer just for Ben. Ben accepted it with great, quiet pride and a big smile on his face.

Now there are enough lessons in this story to noticeably slow broadband Blog services on the East Coast for a month – one for instance is how difficult it would be for Ben’s parents to motivate him in years to come. But what sticks with me is Ben’s internal posture to this incredible performance.

While our jaws were scrapping on the floor as we walked to the car, Ben was surprisingly calm and self possessed. He showed no signs of “I beat them” or “I showed them” or “Boy am I great”, [I developed that later. I'M AWESOME.]  it was more “yeah, that was cool, what’s the big deal – doesn’t everyone live life like this?”

And then he said “Hey, let’s go eat.

[Just like then, it always comes back to food around here, doesn't it?]