Monga was in the shallow end of her swimming pool trying to climb onto an inner tube. She managed to get mostly on when suddenly but slowly, her eyes bugged, her arms flailed...you could hear the squeak of her bare limbs against the wet rubber of the inner tube as it flipped upside down.
Mom and I (we'd been batting a beach ball back and forth) stood there laughing and watched for Monga to pop up. She didn't.
Mom, still chuckling, moved the inner tube so it wasn't looming over Monga's head. I tried to grab Monga's hand and pull her up, but she scratched me and hit my hand out of the way. My freshly torn skin stung in the chlorinated water. Monga was panicking. She really thought the water was going to swallow her! All she had to do was put her feet down and stand up. But what she was doing was kicking (slipping) and waving her arms around (splashing Mom and I in the face).
I rolled my eyes. This is so like Monga. She lived her life this way: frantically grappling for a way to stay afloat, though she was safe and breathing just fine. I went underwater. I grabbed Monga under her armpits and pulled her up out of the water. "Stand up!" mom yelled. I was holding Monga up, but her feet were still slipping around. She kicked my shin; I had to let her go to get my own feet under me. Then, determined, I pulled up on her again. "Put your feet down, Mom!" my mother yelled right in Monga's face. Eventually, she did--sputtering, her eyes still bugged out. It took a few minutes for Monga to believe she was okay. Then, she climbed the ladder out of the pool and never got back in it.
My family remembers this moment every summer as we play in the pool. Monga's is now gone, but this year my sister Jessi had one put in her backyard.
"All she had to do was put her feet down and stand up," we say, shaking our heads.
It's so true.
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