Things Might Have Been Worse

A hymn I was overexposed to as a child was Count Your Blessings.

When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

This count your many blessings phrase is trite, it is a cliché that aims to turn the mind of a gloomy Gus towards the ignored positives in one’s life, but just because it is folksy advice doesn’t mean it is sans merit. Worn out phrases of advice are worn out because the advice often achieves the results being sought.

I am particularly sad right now and so I have paused to consider my blessings. I have two.

Age 5

I remember my mother taking me to a public pool. I might have been 4, or I might have just turned 5 when this happened. Regardless of age, I clearly remember much of what I am sharing here. I’m not sure why but somehow my mother was not watching for some short period of time.

I remember watching someone climbing out of the pool by this chrome-shinny ladder. I thought that looked neat. I walked to the ladder, held both sides with my hands, and started down the ladder. I had not realized that it was attached to the side of the pool and that it did not have rungs all the way to the bottom. I stepped down one rung, then a second, but when I tried for the third rung there was nothing there and I went into the pool and sank to the bottom. I can remember trying to get back up the ladder. I could touch the very bottom of that chrome ladder, but I couldn’t pull myself up. I remember looking around and seeing legs above me kicking. I remember the infamous light.

I don’t remember what happened after that.

My mother said she started screaming for help and a 14 year old boy found me at the bottom of the pool and pulled me up. I don’t know what treatment I got at the scene. I don’t recall seeing any doctors. My mother tells me that for several days when I talked she could hear a gurgle because there was water in my lungs.

I remember clearly trying to get up that ladder. I remember looking up, not afraid, but thinking it was odd to see so many legs hanging down from above and all of them kicking back and forth.

If I had died then, I would have died unafraid. I have no memory of being afraid. I thought all this was very odd, but I just didn’t have enough experience to know I should have been afraid.

Age 15

I was really weary the summer I turned 15. My mother had just had twins and as the oldest I had additional chores because of the new babies. I was sort of my mother’s child care assistant. I also did some extra housekeeping stuff because my mother was just worn out by the babies. A person can rock two babies at once, and both my mother and I had our experience rocking two babies at once, but I was really getting tired of being a premature adult. There were not many opportunities for me to get some time off just having fun.

One hot summer day my mother must have known how burned out I was feeling and suggested that I go to the public pool and swim. Looking back now, it was sort of pitiful. I walked to the pool carrying a towel, but I was alone. I had no friends to go to the pool with, it was me, myself, and I. I got to the pool, and it was hot. I was eager to cool off. I tossed my towel to the ground and dove in head first. I hadn’t looked to see where I was. I dove in head first to the shallow end. I went in to about 2 feet of water and hit the bottom of the pool with the crown of my head.

I remember coming up out of the water, strangling. I’d draw water into my nose and throat. I had the pain at the top of my head, but I wasn’t immediately aware of the pain in my neck. I tried to have fun, but I was hurting, and it wasn’t fun being there alone and in pain. I went home. I don’t think I told my mother what had happened. The next morning my neck was swollen badly.

The compression of the vertebra can still be seen in x-rays 45 years later.

I was not aware of just how lucky I was that day. I did absolutely everything right to be paralyzed for life. Had my neck broken and the spinal cord severed I would have had a very different life.

I’ve been a sad person most of my life. This weekend I was packing books and came across old year books I reread some of the notes written in my year book by my peers. I saw words like “brooding” and “sad” being used to describe me. I’ve not been focusing on my blessings. I’ve not been grateful that my life, I’ve not properly appreciated a life that could so easily have gone far, far worse.