Few things make me reflect on love, life, or emotions. Blah. I have always seen myself as emotionally tougher than that… not a stone wall per se, but maybe a big rubber one. It is not something that I have sought as much as gained in my life, lending to the fact that at some level I am a product of my environment. I have unwillingly seen the blood and guts of this society through my vocation and in response have built a defense to it. Human nature. A instantaneous, emotional detachment, when needed, in response to a traumatic event and a denial of self to feel anything more than the urge to do what needs to be done.. maybe even laugh it off later. Almost as if a fortress was built around my soul, not by my own hand, but by the actions of others which I had witnessed.

Its actually comforting. Being able to block out the pain is a good thing one would think. However I have learned this week that you cannot pick and choose what is filtered out. The pain can teach you things about yourself giving you an eye opening emotional enema. Believe me, it stinks just as much as the non-emotional kind.

What has become a annual event, we packed up our bags and headed to my family’s lake house for the week of July4th with Terrie’s 2 sisters (Jamie, Erin) and brother (Micah) in tow. Jamie and her husband (Raphael) have three kids around my girl’s ages, so the screaming and yelling was non-stop. They woke early every day and crashed hard every night. It was nice to see them so active, as the summer had been pretty slow around our house. Most days so far  have been spent inside and this was a much needed vacation for all of us.

We made the decision to travel a few miles away to Helen, Ga where we could walk around the ‘Alpine City’ and go tubing down the Chattahoochee River.  On the way to Helen I stopped by CVS and bought a $100 digital camera. I figured i would get a few zip-lock bags to keep the water off it and snap a few pictures of the tubing trip.

The Chattahoochee river is a stream really. On average it is 2 feet deep. The water was low for some reason this year and we actually spent most of our time scraping the bottom of the riverbed. It was not 20 minutes into a little adventure before the first disaster struck.  As I was trying to dislodge myself from the bed of rocks covered by 3 inches of water I heard the unmistakable bubble of a air leak in my tube.  To my surprise, the cheap $3 tube which was comparable to the thickness of Saran-wrap had burst. I was left sitting in the middle of a cold stream with a deflated doughnut around me. This was gonna suck.

Fortunately we were able to shuffle the kids around and I was again travelling at the slowest rate possible, downstream. Which at this point was feeling more like a task rather than a enjoyable afternoon. Chloe and Cosey had tubes with a bottom so they would not fall through or potentially get wet at all. Chloe of course had a life preserver on her which came in handy at one point when she leaned to far over the tube and tumbled out. Again, with the shallow water it was not cause for concern, but definitely made for a chuckle. Well, SHE was not laughing.. but I was.

Cosey had her tube strapped to mine so that she would stay close. Being 8 years old, and independent as ever, she felt that this tether was a suppression of her individual rights as a woman and was demanding  for 20 minutes for me to remove it or she would sue.  I glanced at the slow stream ahead and told her that she could detach the strap for a few minutes, however when the stream became more rough she would have to come back. She agreed and was happily floating a few feet away from me gloating in her feminist battle which had been won.

Leaning back with a smile and the sun on her face she enjoyed her new freedom, only to be thwarted by gravity. She had leaned back a little two far and had consequently dumped herslef out of the tube and into the cold water. She stood up and whimpered, with her bottom lip stuck out as far as possible.  I laughed my ass off. She then proclaimed, through the sniffles, that she wanted to be strapped back to my tube again. Ahhh.. this day was starting to look up again.

I grabbed a rock to stop my motion and told her to come downstream to me so I could reattach the tether. She began walking, pushing  the tube toward me. Only being 20 or so feet away she thought it would probably be quicker to just walk to me. I pulled the newly purchased digital camera out of the bag and started taking pictures of her as she approached, watching her push the tube through the screen and snapping a occasional shot here and there. That is when she disappeared.   I looked up from the camera (still taking pictures) and wondered where she went. The tube was still in the middle of the stream and I assumed that she had tripped over a rock and fallen behind the tube. I snapped another picture in hopes of catching her coming up from the cold water with a humorous expression on her face. She resurfaced, but the situation was entirely different. I suddenly became aware that she was not standing anymore… apparently the stream had dropped from 2 feet deep to 10, and she had just walked right off the drop. Her arms were flailing and she was gasping for air. The time it took for me to get my fat butt out of the tube, and start swimming upstream seemed too long. I was only 10-15 feet away, but I suddenly realized that I could not reach the bottom either, and I had to swim against the current to get to her. She bobbed and choked awhile before I would pull her up. All the while my eyes were fixed on her as I pushed my way toward her. The image of my daughter, basically drowning right in front of me, was being burned into my memory.

I reached her and pushed her head up out of the water. She grabbed and clawed my head as i swam us over to the edge of the drop where we could sit. She took a deep breath and started wailing, still attached to my neck. I don’t blame her one bit, it was traumatic for both of us. Like children do, she was over it within a day or two, however i still lay awake at night recalling those images burned into the back of my skull meanwhile second guessing my parental choices at the time. Thinking about “what-ifs” is never healthy or fun. Mostly I am just thankful that she is still here, yapping at me while I am trying to write this post, without pause, 3 inches from my ear. The best distraction ever.

“Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.”
Charles Lamb (1775 – 1834)

Yeah,.. i know. I have not been posting in awhile. There will be no excuses, however I plan to kick it into gear now… so back off.

No large rant today. Just a few pics from our outing at the park today. enjoy.

Chloe takes on Gravity.. and static electricity.

Cosey climbed half way up and begged for a picture. I was evil and waited a while before i snapped it to see how long she could hold on before yelling at me…

Refusing to look at the camera.

She is growing up way to fast.

It only took 37 shots to get them to hold still and smile at the same time.

She will pose on command.. the effects of having a father who takes way too many pictures.

The attitude towards that same father after taking too many pictures.

“The thing that impresses me the most about America is the way parents obey their children”
King Edward VIII (1894 – 1972)