Courage

July hasn't been much of a summer vacation for our family.  Our weekends have been filled with block parties, fireworks, vacation Bible school, trips to Illinois, painting our living room, and car shopping.  And we have had swimming lesson on every weekday of July.  I don't especially like when people answer "How have you been?" with "Busy!" but we have been just that lately.

During the first session of swimming lessons, I signed both kids up under their respective skill levels.  There were not enough kids signed up for the beginners course, so they lumped Sassy Pants in with Smarty Pants' group.  Smarty Pants passed the Eel course with flying colors.  Sassy Pants did not pass, but she does hold the current record for swallowing the most water while talking about pink cats instead of swimming.  She still considers herself a winner.

While Smarty Pants' confidence was high, I decided to piggy back his triumph over the Eel course with another round of swimming lessons -- this time with no float belt.  Smarty Pants is anxious by nature.  He is hesitant to try new things.  Swimming without a float belt was no exception.  On the first day, the swimming instructor loaded the kiddos into the shallow end of the pool and handed them a kick board.  They kicked their way down to the deep end, where she plopped them all up on the wall of the pool and said, "Okay, jump in!"  One by one, the other kids jumped in, bobbed to the surface, and scrambled to the wall again.  When it was Smarty Pants' turn, he curled his toes around the edge of the pool and started trembling.  He looked over his shoulder at me and fell into a heap of tears.  I went over to squat near him and offered (what I hoped to be) words of encouragement, promising that we wouldn't let him drown and that it would be easier after the first jump.  The tears stopped, but the trembling persisted.  Just as I was thinking, "Welp, looks like I wasted sixty bucks.  Maybe next time..." he leaped into the pool.  He bobbed back to the surface, swam to the side by himself, coughed up a little water, and beamed his toothless grin.  Watching my IRL hero face one of his many fears reminded me of something one of my literary heroes said.

"[Courage is] when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what."  - Atticus Finch in "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

I often refer to Sassy Pants as courageous, but she's actually fearless.  Courage and fearlessness are not synonymous.  Courageous people are afraid, but they push through those fears.  Smarty Pants has courage.  He knew there was a possibility that he might fail.  He probably thought there was a possibility that he might get seriously hurt or even die.  But, just when I was about to give up on him, he took the (literal) plunge.  The next day -- day two of swimming with no float belt -- he swam the width of the pool four times, dove into the deep end twice, and climbed down a metal pole while holding his breath to touch the bottom of the deep end.  He has done those same courageous things every day since then.  Without a float belt.  He's learning how to save himself.  Saving ourselves often looks a lot like taking risks.