My maternal grandparents lived at a lake all of my life… and all of my mother’s life, come to think of it.

That’s really neither here nor there.

The fact that they lived at a lake is important, here… not how long.

… ramble, ramble …

Anyway!! Pretty much every weekend that the water was warm enough my older brother, my little sister and I were in the water. Safely, mind you. We always wore life jackets until we were old enough to stand (if needed) on the bottom of the lake near the end of the dock. Then we graduated to life belts. It was one of the most important rules given to us by our parents while at the lake.

The drawback to wearing the flotation devices were very simple. They floated. Constantly. Without fail. There was no way to go underwater for any period of time while wearing the jacket. Time was very limited when wearing the belt, also.

Once, my sister and I playing in front of the dock, in the water, wearing our flotation devices. My sister, who is six years younger than me, and obviously much smaller than I, wanted to go under water. The only way to do this for any amount of time was for me, the older sister, to push her under the water and hold her under.

Now, I know that sounds horrible, but really… it was fun. Angie, back me up here!

We had decided that the ’sign’ for me to let her back up would be for her to let some air out, creating air bubbles at the water surface. I’d let go of her and the life jacket would do its job, making her float.

You have to admit, at least we were smart enough to make a plan… right?  C’mon…

Once while playing our game, I pushed Angie under the water like I had done several times before, yet I lost my grip of her. She should of popped right out from under the water, except in the process of me loosing my grip, I somehow released her at an angle. This angle had her surfacing directly underneath the dock.

Of course, instead of surfacing in between the two floats under the dock, therefore being above water, she comes up underneath the float. And, I cannot grab her life jacket well enough to pull her down and around the float, bringing her back up to the surface.

In the mean time, she’s giving me the ’sign’ to let go of her so she can come up. (Do we remember what the ’sign’ is, class?)

It seemed like a lifetime before I was able to get a hold of her well enough to pull her out from the dock.

I was terrified. I was fairly certain that I was in the process of accidentally killing my sister by drowning her.

Thankfully, I finally got a good grip on her and pulled her to the surface.

She promptly yelled at me, wanting to know why I was ignoring the sign to let her get air. I explained the whole story to the barely 5 year old. Besides being very angry at me for not letting her up when she gave the ’sign’, she was absolutely fine.

We never played the stupid game again.

Every time I tell someone this story, my sister says, “I don’t remember that happening.”

She remembers the story, of course, because I’ve told it several times. But, she doesn’t remember the actual moment where I nearly killed her.

And for that, I’m thankful for.