Hero posted 9/18/2008 8:39:10 AM | 6 kudos what's this?     report abuse

sloriver

When I was four years old my family moved to the farm. it was on a lake with a nice swimming beach and diving board. Uncle Joe used to come to visit, I think, just to use the lake. One day I was wading in the shallow water when he asked me if I wanted to learn how to swim. I was scared but I thought he was so smart and brave and able that I said yes, believing he could teach me. After all, he siad so. He put his hand under my belly and held me up in the water and taught me to dog paddle. Slowly then, he lowered his hand and I was swimming. Just like that. it was a miracle that I had known would happen because he was my hero.

I went to the wake of my Uncle Joe yesterday evening. He was the first of my mother's generation to pass. The whole family was there except for Tracy who never attends funerals. Tracy made a bad bargain this time, though. He promised Joe that he'd go to his funeral if he died first. In return, if Tracy died first Joe was to go to his. This seems strange but you have to know Tracy. He's never been to a funeral. It's a personal rule with him. Nobody knows where the rule came from but Tracy is a strong willed individual and makes his own rules. The rest of the family can only love him in spite of his stubborness, a trait that's shared throughout the family. So, today, for the first time, we'll see Tracy at a funeral. I know Joe is laughing his heavenly ass off.

The family is a big rambunctious, laughing, joking, and sometimes off color group of strong self assured individualists. To know them and to be one of them is a priveledge I thank God for. Last night, they were at their best. There was much laughter and good natured joking. It might seem disrespectful to some, but for Uncle Joe this was mana from Heaven. He was the biggest joker of us all. He was never at a loss for words. The jokes and tall tales sprang from him any time he was around the people he loved. There was a time, though, when I saw him a real live hero.

My family moved to Illinois when I was 7 years old. Every 4th of July we packed our old car and headed south to visit the family. We stayed for two weeks and always with relatives. My Aunt Myrtle was our chief victim but we trooped in on my dad's relatives too. We were always welcomed. As an adult I see what an imposition these trips were to the people who housed and fed us, and I'd like to make it up to them some way but my house isn't that big. Those trips were magic for a kid. We swam and fished and shot off firecrackers by the thousands. The day Unle Joe was a hero stands out in my mind. We had gone swimming. It wasn't a public pool but a lake or stream somewhere. There were thirty or more people there. A young mother with her two little children were at the edge of the water. The mother was letting the children wade. I saw her playing with them, always keeping herself between them and the deeper water. She stepped back too far and lost her balance when her foot went off the ledge near the shore. She drolpped suddenly into deep water. She sank and came up coughing but couldn't get a breath before she sank again. She couldn't swim. Her children stood on the bank wide eyed and concerned, their confusion turning to fear.

I knew she was going to drown when Unle Joe came running past and dove into the deep water. He disappeared and then came up with her in his arms. She climbed desperately on top of him and forcing him under. He'd hardly had time to get a breath before she shoved him under. He struggled to the surface again with her holding desperately to his head. He couldn't get air. I knew he was going to drown. Suddenly he disappeared and I could tell she had let go. Then miraculously, she started to rise from the water. She lifted up until I saw Unle Joe's hands holding her high over his head as he WALKED out of the water. He had done the only thing he could do to save them both. He had held her high and gotten his feet on the bottom long enough to start walking out with her. He carried her out and put her on the ground where she was looked after by her friends. He saved that young woman and gave those children their mother. I'm sure they don't remember it. Their mother is elderly now. I wonder if she remembers the athletic young blond man who saved her life. I wonder if she remembers my Uncle Joe.

That day he paid off his debt for the gift of life by giving that young woman back hers. But he was already a hero. He had been ever since that day on our lake when I trusted him enough to overcome my fear, the day he taught me to swim.

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