“My Bad”

A Cautionary Tale

By Sara McDermott

My sister’s second child, Theresa, was a pretty little girl.  You know the type, big brown eyes with soft velvety lashes set in a peaches and cream face framed by bouncy brown hair.  She had the sweet shy disposition that endears little girls to any adult in the vicinity, and the sight of her with her hand in her brother’s hand could have been painted by Rockwell.

I took them to the lake often in those sun-tanning days of my own youth before cancer scares and wrinkles drove me inside to swim.

The day I remember was a crowded Sunday at Lake McBride south of Cedar Rapids.  The lake lay at the foot of a grassy hill with about fifty feet of sand at the bottom for sunning.  I had an old air mattress in the car that the kids loved to drag along the edge of the water, and I sat in the sand blowing it up while they ran around looking for friends.  Theresa was always the last in the pack, but she could run anyplace with the rest of them.  This day she and her big brother (he was six, she was three) found four or five of their friends and the fun began.

I gave them the air mattress, and, before I went back to the grassy area to sit down, told the other kids to be sure to watch out for Theresa to see that she didn’t go out too far.  I sat back at the foot of the hill and watched as they dragged the mattress back and forth along the edge of the water.

It seemed only a second that I glanced away, but what I saw when I looked back will never fade from my memory.

The mattress was on its way out into the lake pulled by the bigger kids, and Theresa was frantically trying to grab the edge that she had been holding just seconds before.  When the boys pulled it out into deeper water she didn’t know better than to run along too.

I don’t recall getting up but I know that I jumped over assorted bodies on beach towels that lay between me and the water and, if I stepped on anyone, they didn’t protest or I didn’t hear them.

I saw her go under twice and that little hand reached for the third time as I ran for the water.

I suppose the sight of a near six-foot woman leaping over reclining bodies on the beach was quite an attention getter because I noticed one very puzzled looking man standing waist deep in the water staring at me and looking around to see what had gotten me on my feet.

Thank God he saw her struggling.  He reached over and pulled her out of the water and held her over his head like a weight-lifter so I could see her over the crowd.

The scene was a classic one of me blubbering all over the man that had rescued her.  I thanked and thanked him as I carried a very soggy little girl back to the beach blanket to dry out.

If I didn’t know before that day that children can’t be the care-takers of other children, I know it now.  I vested responsibility in kids too young to be responsible in a potentially dangerous situation.  I couldn’t have blamed anyone else if she had drowned, and I have carried that lesson around in my head ever since.