Swimming lessons start
by rebecca ~ October 22nd, 2007. Filed under: Ordinary Miracles.
My son has begun his swimming lessons with his teacher, Todd, who is a soft-voiced and patient man who looks like an ex-footballer. Todd just ignored my son’s intermittent and nervous repetitions of “All done” which surfaced during the 30 minutes and kept encouraging my son to reach with his arms and splash and kick with his legs. I saw the glimmers of a smile when he began to kick his legs on his own while floating both on his back and on his stomach and his determined face “on three!” when leaping off the rail into his teacher’s arms.
Upon occasion my son understandably got lost in the beauty of the late afternoon sunlight dazzling against the poolside wall, but overall he seemed to be focused on the serious and hard work of being cajoled around deep water.
After he finished, a young girl, maybe age 8 or 9, who also had just finished her physical therapy session in the pool, rolled her wheelchair past us and gave my son an encouraging, “You did a good job!” Sweet girl. My hopes are that he will learn to swim and enjoy it as much as she seemed to, and also that someday he will give similar words of encouragement to a new child taking her first splashes toward becoming a swimmer.