People kept me from drowning in so many ways… How can I pull someone else out of the deep?

“Not the waves, not the storms, but often we ourselves sink our ships!” ― Mehmet Murat ildan

As preschooler I remember falling into the water on several occasions and being pulled out. Someone was standing there at the right time to jerk me out of those deep waters as I sunk like a stone. As I think back on it now, I’m wondering how I got there and where were the responsible adults? It was always a strangers hand that reached down and grabbed me. A few years older, I also remember being swept away down river while we were all playing one summer. A much older cousin was in the right place to see me floating past. She grabbed me out of the fast current, arms flailing and head under the murky water.

These people, there right when I needed them. Isn’t that how the story of our lives is often told? We are blessed with people – family, friends and even strangers – pulling us up and out and setting us back on course.

“The help I never got is now the help I give.” ― Marion Bekoe

As a senior adult (how did that happen all of a sudden?) I regret not reaching up and taking the hand of several lifeguards along the way of my life. When we are directing or misdirecting our lives, we make too many lonely choices. It’s different than being a five-year-old sinking in the apartment pool. Young adult males like me back then are so full of confident fear. I also didn’t have a track record with mentoring relationships while growing up. Later, while working with youth and college students I was determined to be a lifeguard of sorts. I knew firsthand that chances to pull people out of the pool can be far and few between.

“But once in a while the odd thing happens,
Once in a while the dream comes true,
And the whole pattern of life is altered,
Once in a while the moon turns blue.”
― W.H. Auden

Learning to be this kind of person should start when you’re young. These days I’m having conversations (sort of) with my eight-year-old grandson about why giving is better than getting. I can literally see the wheels turning in his concrete-operational brain. This ideal does not make a lot of sense, but he’s willing to play along. Maybe I should do a better job of setting and pointing out examples. There was a story and video on the news recently about a sixteen-year-old lifeguard who jumped into the raging riptide surf and saved a ten-year-old boy. That’s an over-the-top example and may not work for convincing him to let his little sister go first in line.

“Everybody wants to save the Earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.” ― P.J. O’Rourke

There are people in my life right now who are drowning and being pulled away in raging currents of disaster. How can I be someone who’s there at the right time and place? Is there something I can do because I know firsthand what it’s like to be pulled up choking out of potential disaster?

“He who sees a need and waits to be asked for help is as unkind as if he had refused it.” ― Dante Alighieri