Every summer when I was a kid my church had a pool party at one of the members houses. That was one of my favorite times of the year, I would get to hangout with friends and eat food, but the best part was swimming. And every year the party was the same as if I replayed it every year. But I didn’t know that this year was going to be different.

The normal routine every year was the same as most people except I would always do a front flip off the diving board that every year I would fail and turn my back red. But that year I was confident because I was like 10 years old, I was a big kid, well I thought I was a big kid. And of course like every year I failed. But that didn’t stop me, I tried until my back was a tomato, then I gave up. Little me didn’t care though a continued my yearly routine with swimming and eating and swimming some more.

Me and my friends played with our water guns as we hide behind the floating tube, playing until my eyes turned red from the chlorine. But slowly my friends left and soon enough I was by myself. Out of boredom I would just swim back and forth and eat more food. Waiting to leave every minute felt so long, I was bored but it was still sunny. And then I saw one of those tubes but for kids with a seat that was connected.

I decided to get on it because I had nothing else to do but I stayed near the side of the pool just to be safe. It was fun for awhile but the I accidentally leaned back, the tube flipped me over and before I knew it I was drowning. With one hand plugging my nose and my eyes closed because I can’t see underwater, I couldn’t do anything. Almost losing all my air ten seconds felt like ten minutes. Other people were in the pool but I felt invisible because nobody came to help me. I tried to reach for the edge but all that did was push me away. At some points I could hold onto the edge and bring myself up, but I could only scream out the words help. The screaming didn’t help out of breath I breathed in water as a replacement for air and with all my strength I pulled myself up. I asked the person next to me why they didn’t help me and all they had to say was that they thought I was playing.

Whenever I think about that day I can still imagine and feel the water around me and the water that I had to swallow. I was underneath the water for only about two minutes. I lasted that long because of the few breaths I was able to take and if I just gave up and didn’t use my last breath I wouldn’t be here today. I see my life in a whole new perspective now. After that day it felt like if a black and white TV could finally display color. I don’t know how I was able to grab ahold of that edge but now whenever I think about it I’m glad I made it.