The Absolutely Terrified Swimming Club
By Julia A. Keirns
(This article was published at ChildrensMall.com in June, 2001)
It was 1967. I was only three years old, so I don’t remember this story. My mother tells it well. Her mother (my grandmother) had just passed away. It wasn’t me who joined the swimming club at the local YMCA. It was my mother…
She laughs with tears in her eyes as she recalls this time in her life. Some of her neighbor lady friends talked her into joining the club with them. My mother could swim. In fact, she could swim quite well. How silly it seemed to take a swimming class at the Y, let alone, join the Absolutely Terrified Swimming Club. But, she needed something to occupy her time. You know, the first few months following the death of a loved one are hard. At the time, the swimming class was the only thing available.
One of the neighbor ladies really was absolutely terrified of the water, and had wanted to take this class anyway. She needed her friends there to support her though. She didn’t want to take the class alone. So the other three ladies (my mother being one of them) all of whom could swim quite well, joined the club with her. They were helping one of their friends learn how to swim, while at the same time helping another one of their friends (my mother) through the loss of her mother.
Yes, in the winter of 1967, there really was a class at the local YMCA for adults called “The Absolutely Terrified Swimming Club.” And at the age of 35, my mother earned a swimming patch for passing that class. She laughs now, because she knew how to swim. Then she recalls, they even went on together and passed the beginning, intermediate, and advanced swimming classes with their friend.
She remembers driving home from the class one night, four thirty-something women taking a beginning swimming class. One of the ladies piped up and said, “Well, look at it this way, we are getting our exercise. Maybe we will all lose some weight.” And then she pulled out four chocolate bars from her purse and passed them out.
As I sat and listened to my mother tell me this story, I thought, “You know, that is what friendship is all about.” Do we have friends like that who would join an absolutely terrified swimming club with us? Do we have friends that we would do that for? I hope so.
Friendship truly is priceless, and whether it is needing to learn how to swim at the age of 35, or struggling to move on past the death of our mother, we need friends there to help us through. Make sure you have friends like that in your life. I know I do.