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I don't remember how old I was. Maybe six or seven. I knew how to swim, or so I thought. I was straining a bit, but holding my own. Until a tiny ripple of water made its way into my lungs as I swam out to retrieve one of my cherished toys. My older sister and I were in Maine, capturing the last bits of playing time by the lake before it got too dark. Mom and Dad had walked back up the street to the cabin and were getting dinner ready by now, unaware their son was preparing his mind to accept he was going to drown.
The sun had already disappeared, and the remaining twilight made the lake and sky black and blue. I remember glimpsing the band of wheat-colored clouds on the horizon just before my head went under. I'd underestimated how tired my arms were, and like most fledgling swimmers, my legs were of little use. I was sure I wouldn't be able to resurface.
How old does someone have to be to properly determine what constitutes a near-death experience? The toddler who ambles into the street and gets snatched back to safety will never appreciate how close they were to a premature end. For the savior, a moment like that can be a gift, granting an instant injection of gratitude, humility, and perspective. But the toddler misses out. They're relegated to being a casual audience to loved ones recounting the story to them when they come of age.
But I'm lucky. I didn't suffer that fate. Because I remember the feeling of shock at the unexpected ripple of water that caught my throat. I remember the panic sweeping through my body. I remember the sheer darkness under the surface as I struggled. And after my sister pulled her choking, gasping brother back to the lakeside, I remember how she swam back out to bring him the toy he failed to retrieve.
We didn't dwell on the magnitude of what happened. We laughed about it, still too young at the time to appreciate how fragile life could be. We acted like it was an episode of Scooby-Doo, stopping just short of declaring "Zoiks, that was a close one, Scoob!". But she saved my life, without a doubt.
In a few years, I'll be rolling up on the 40th anniversary of that little scare. Our lives went in very different directions in the decades that followed. But no matter where I am or what I'm doing, I can always hold on to the fact that I wasn't too young to know she was a hero that night, and nothing I've ever done would have been possible without her.