This is how I remember it. My family had gone on a trip to Pike’s Peak. I was sitting on the steps of the motel pool, playing with a toy boat.
My mom was on a lounge chair on the deck, and my brother and sister were swimming. One of them called to my dad. He went to them.
The boat floated away from me. I reached out for it and slipped off the steps. My hand grabbed for the boat as my head dropped below the surface.
I was two years old. I couldn’t swim. I couldn’t breathe.
That is my earliest memory, and I’m the only one in my family that remembers that day that way. It could have been just a few seconds before my father grabbed me and placed me on the deck, not enough time for anyone else to fear harm, to form a mental snapshot of that moment. But, I was two, and I was scared that I would never come back up to take another breath.
Despite repeated lessons, I didn’t learn how to swim with my head below the surface of the water until I was seven years old. I didn’t venture past the shallow end of the pool for another couple of years after that.