One for the books...

We haven’t had the internet AT ALL at our place for nearly a month now. I have mixed emotions about that. It helps me be VERY productive at home, however, I would really like to blog more than I have been able too. I have a lot of catch up to do. Some of our biggest news (which many of you are already aware of) is that we will be moving to Calgary in a few weeks. I’ll be interested to see just how different, or perhaps alike Canadia is. We (I sincerely hope) will have the internet there so I will keep you a little more up to date on the happenings.

Yesterday, our family had a little experience, actually quite the experience, really. I wanted to write it down before I forgot any of the details. So here it is:

It had been a typical, lazy Sunday afternoon. The boys (including Matt) napped while I wrote Julia a letter and did the Sunday breakfast and lunch dishes. We ate again and then decided that we should go for a little drive. We had to return some movies to a drop box anyway and also had to park in the library parking lot where there is a wireless signal so I could send Julia’s letter off on “Dear Elder”. Anyway, we ran our errands and spent a little extra time in the library parking lot so we could look at the pictures my dad had posted on Facebook of their most recent tour of the islands. Lincoln and Bennett had both had it with being in the car so we debated if we should go on a Sunday drive or not. We headed back home, but as we approached home, the boys had kinda quieted down so we thought we’d try and get away with a little drive. By that time, it was probably around 6:30 PM or so.

We drove past our house and further out into the country. We thought about heading out towards Winchester where Matt goes fishing, but we had been there 1,000 times so I thought of a little road we hadn’t been on yet. It headed towards a little town called Waha up into the wooded hills we can see off in the distance from our house. The drive was BEAUTIFUL. Lewiston proper is kinda ugly and dry right now and where we are, there are just dry wheat fields with no tree cover. As we drove, we headed up into the pines. The air smelled so fresh. This was turning out to be a much better Sunday drive than I had anticipated. We kept going and saw a sign for Waha Lake. We missed the lake and drove past it and then the highway turned into a dirt road. We decided to turn around and I insisted that we go by and check out the lake. We found Waha Lake Park where there was absolutely no one. It was so beautiful and made me think that if we had to stay in Lewiston forever, I’d be OK with it. The lake was in a bowl surrounded by mini mountains. They are more than hills, but less than what I would call a mountain. Anyway, the banks were quite steep. We couldn’t really get down to the lake from the park with the stroller and I was still wearing my Sunday best and flip flops. We found a different road where there was a dock that went maybe 100 ft or so out into the lake. There was family fishing off the dock when we first arrived. Bennett was also still in his Sunday best, but after watching Lincoln throw rocks in the lake, he had to as well. So I sat him down on the bank to let him join in the fun. After the other people left, we thought we’d let Lucy have a little swim. There was a small area on the right side of the dock with a boat ramp. I thought that we could keep Lucy contained in there and let her have a little freedom. I am all about keeping Lucy contained, cause she really can’t be trusted. She does OK off-leash until she sees a bird or something in the distance that could possibly be an animal. She’ll dart off and then it can be quite an ordeal trying to get her back.

We really haven’t had many opportunities in the past to let her swim, so I wasn’t exactly sure how much she’d like it or wouldn’t like it. Initially, she wouldn’t get in, which surprised me, but then Matt pushed her off the dock, and then she realized how much fun it was. She loves playing a little game with herself where she makes a splash with her front paws and then tries to bite the splash she made. We were aware of this game prior to this swim, but we didn’t know just how much she liked it. She ended up swimming around the whole dock and getting out on the bank on the opposite side of the dock from the boat ramp where I had thought we would be able to keep her contained. She stayed close so I figured we could let her get in again over by the boat ramp with little risk of her doing anything too wild. She kind of repeated her last swimming route but when she got to the other side of the dock, instead of getting out, she started to parallel the bank and was getting a ways away. The banks, like I said, were really steep and covered with shrubbery. I started getting nervous and told Matt to jump in and get her while we had the chance. If she got out on another section of the bank, I didn’t know how we’d get her back. Matt said no way, and assured me that she’d come back when she was ready. I tried to remain calm, and she did change direction and began heading right out into the middle of the lake.  My fears of her getting out where we couldn’t get her subsided, but then I realized that her little game was leading her in exactly a straight line out into the middle of the lake. She had already been swimming for quite sometime. She really doesn’t get intense exercise like that EVER and so I began to worry that she wouldn’t know her limits and would play her little game out so far and exhaust herself to the point where she wouldn’t have the energy to make it back to shore. She looked like she was doing fine and having fun so I tried to curtail my fears, but she kept getting farther and farther away. I was holding Bennett on my hip and holding Lincoln’s hand against his will. He would have rather been throwing rocks in the water, but I had to focus on Lucy and not him at that moment. I yelled at Matt to jump in and get her. He again refused, but the longer we waited to retrieve her, the less likely the rescue would be successful. This was quite a large lake. It would be quite the feat to swim across the whole breadth for the non-Olympic swimmer, but I think I could probably do it if I had all day. By this time, Lucy was probably 300 yards out. I kept waiting and waiting for her to change direction, but she didn’t. I was so enraged that Matt didn’t jump in and get her when success was guaranteed. I walked up the boat ramp to where we had left the stroller, strapped the two boys in, and ran down the bank, down the length of the dock, dropped my drawers (or my skirt actually), stripped off my knit top and as I took off my flip flops Matt yelled from the bank, “WHAT are you DOING???”. “I’m gonna go get her”, I said.

As I jumped in, I was struck with two emotions; 1) utter disbelief that A) this was how our beautiful Sunday drive/walk was turning out and B) I was actually jumping in with my pearl necklace still on, and 2) total anxiety about being able to successfully rescue Lucy. I tried to keep my head on straight and remember all the lessons I had been taught in my swimming lessons growing up and at Young Women’s camp about how to rescue a drowning person. I didn’t dive in, but jumped in so my head would stay above water so I could keep an eye on the “victim”, who was actually not a victim yet, just a dog having a good time, who was swimming AWAY from me. I also kept my head above water while swimming so I wouldn’t waste my energy swimming in the wrong direction. I swam at quite a pace for a ways. I am not a bad swimmer. I was on the swim team for a season in high school, but decided I really hated it. I am, granted, a flabby mother of two, but I can typically run quite a ways whether I’m in shape or not. I have some natural endurance and determination, but about half way to Lucy, who was getting ever farther away, I realized I couldn’t keep up the pace and that I had overestimated my swimming abilities. I tried a different stroke or two to use some different muscles. Matt yelled to me, “Keep going!!!”. I yelled back, “I CAN’T!!!”. As if I wouldn’t keep up the pace if I could. I kept trying to keep up, but she was just too fast. I knew there was no way I could get her. I wasted a little more energy expressing my displeasure that Matt hadn’t jumped in and grabbed her when it would have been easy. 

Soon thereafter, Lucy angled to the right slightly which renewed my hopes for catching her. I cut the corner and did the front stroke again with all the energy I could muster. I swam and swam and I was getting closer. FINALLY I got her.  I flipped over and laid on my back to catch my breath while holding one of her front legs at the elbow. My heart was racing and I couldn’t really catch my breath very well cause Lucy kept trying to get on top of me or swim away. I knew I couldn’t lie there for long and realized that although I had expended most of my energy trying to catch up, I was only half way through the rescue. I had to somehow make it back to shore WITH her. I looked around trying to decide which bank was the closest and then I laid back down on my back and did the frog kick, pulling Lucy along with me. I was still panting heavily and my muscles were all telling me to stop and rest, but I HAD to keep going. Every other stroke, Lucy try to climb on top of me and push me down far enough that my mouth would go under. I swallowed quite a bit of water, but still felt I could go on. I kept going, but total exhaustion started to set in and I began to think that with Lucy pushing me under a bit every so often, I really wouldn’t be able to make it. At that point I was about 20 yards from the bank. I was ALMOST there. I uttered a prayer of desperation, “Heavenly Father, help me!!”. I was around a point on the bank from the dock, so Matt couldn’t see me, but he heard my prayer and was totally terrified that I was about to drown. I think if I had tried to hold onto Lucy any longer, perhaps I would have come close, but when it became clear that I couldn’t do it, I let go of her and floated the rest of the way to shore.

I laid there on the pointy rocks totally defeated and utterly and completely exhausted. The only other time that I have ever felt the way I did was after I had been in induced labor with Lincoln for 6 hours and then they gave me some kind of narcotic pain reliever. Just like then, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. The desire to sleep was more intense than I had ever felt before. Matt didn’t know what was going on cause I didn’t have the energy to say anything. He yelled, “Talk to me! Where are you?”. “I’m here, I’m on shore”, I muttered. I opened my eyes slightly and watched Lucy swim away right back into outer space. How would we ever get her? Was she going to die? If she did die, at least I knew that I had honestly given it my all to save her instead of standing idly by, hoping that she’d have the sense to come back. I started to get a little strength back and yelled to Matt around the point to ask if one of the neighbors had a boat. He said that was silly and that she’d come back. I watched her get further and further away. There was nothing else I could do except sit there and watch. She swam and swam keeping us wondering as to what her fate might be. Then the clouds parted, angels sang and Lucy decided it was time to come back. She swam right back to me just as Matt had said she would. I said to Matt around the corner with a big sigh of relief, “I got her”. He went with the boys up the road to get the car while Lucy and I swam round the point to the boat ramp. I walked up the boat ramp in my drenched undies and pearls holding onto Lucy’s neck skin feeling very glad that no one was around to witness the scene. I was all scratched up on my legs, arms and face from Lucy trying to climb on top of me/swim away. It wasn’t pretty. I walked to the end of the dock, put my skirt and flip flops back on and started wearily up the road to where the car was parked. Matt came down, met me with the car and opened up the back for Lucy to jump in. The reception I got as I approached the car was not what I expected. I thought there might be a hug of relief and gladness or something, but instead Matt yelled at me for being so senseless. “You’ve got two kids, you can’t just do things like that and risk your life”. I honestly never thought my life was at risk, but Matt had been sincerely scared that I was going to drown 20 yards from the shore, just out of sight. Had I tried to hold on to Lucy those last 20 yards, perhaps I would have put my life at risk. “She’s a dog, a wild animal. She can take care of herself”, he said. I recognize that she has life preservation instincts, but I didn’t know her limits and wasn’t sure if she did either. She is a DOMESTICATED animal who does some pretty brainless things sometimes. I guess I had to get to the point of total exhaustion having given it my everything before I could feel comfortable leaving it to fate.

I’m pretty sure Matt and I will never see eye to eye on the issue. I thought it was all his fault that she got in that situation in the first place and he thought it was totally senseless and ridiculous that I jumped in to “save” her when she could fend for herself just fine. Had the story ended a differently, I’m pretty sure it would have taken me a really long time to forgive Matt. We tried to argue the issue out on the way home, but the windy road in addition to my overexertion was making me very queasy. I couldn’t keep my eyes open and hardly had the energy to talk let alone talk loudly enough so Matt could hear me over his lecturing. When we got home at 8:45 PM or so, I stripped off my wet clothes, put my sweats on, flopped into bed and put the covers over my head. This morning Matt woke me up so we could say our morning prayer before he went to work. He kissed me goodbye after the prayer and said, “Love you, my diving princess”. I said, “No, your Baywatch beach babe.” and we giggled. I think we’ll laugh about this for a really long time. All is well that ends well, but it is definitely one for the books, no?