From panic to water to a gold medal

I grew up looking at a small altar, always adorned with fresh flowers, that my mother tended in a corner of her room. On it occupied a privileged position the beautiful image of a virgin wearing a crown covered with pearls, the patron saint of sailors. Next to her, the image of a blessed doctor, venerated throughout my country, held a watchful position, attentive to any request my mother made to him that had to do with the health of the family. Others, saints were grouped indistinctly on the reduced surface. But the image that concentrated all my attention was the photograph of a little girl, the photograph of a dead girl, with soft slings in her hair and big eyes that seemed to express an eternal sadness.

Norita had drowned on the banks of the river in my city, at a time when women washed their clothes there. She was the daughter of a very close relative of my mother whom she loved like a sister. Norita's death filled her mother, Inocencia, with indescribable feelings. All subsequent memories of the extended family alluded to that death as a mark that completely transformed the character of Inocencia, who went from being the source of joy and the engine of the family, to plunging into complete apathy and melancholy.

As the years went by, Inocencia, who later became my godmother, was able to live with the memory of her deceased daughter and had other children and godchildren, and life regained a certain normality for her, but Norita's portrait remained in the family altars as a mute reminder. I always felt that she represented the fear of water, in the rivers and in the seas.

Mom was a very good swimmer, she grew up near the river and moved in the waters like a mermaid. But her children we were not lucky enough to learn to swim in our childhood. Mom instilled in us a terrible fear of water. Whenever we went for a walk in areas where there was a river, or we went near the sea, Mom would go into a state of alert.

"When the water hits you over here, back up!" she would tell us insistently, touching her hands to the exact spot on our waists. Then she would place her hands on our breasts and point out:
May the water never reach your chest!
That's how we grew up, indoctrinated in the fear of water, held back by a look, from Norita's portrait.

When I had my children, the first thing I taught them, outside the home, was to swim. I think nothing mattered more to me in the world than feeling that my children were safe being good swimmers. I systematically took them to swimming lessons from before they were a year old and kept them practicing until their early teens. I would die of anguish every time the coaches would remove the floats and my children would have to swim on their own. Then I enjoyed immensely watching them swim the fifty meters of an Olympic pool. .

At swim club competitions the other parents were amazed to see them swimming so small.
"You must swim very well," the other parents would say to me.
"I don't know how to swim!" I would always reply and a strange feeling would always fill my chest.

I love the sea with a desperate love! To rivers I have a certain form of respect, it is true, but all of mom's phrases could not stop me from deeply wishing to dive into the waters of the sea and swim towards the horizon.

Thus, women incomplete, I remained until the fourth decade of my life. I watched my children and other people swim and felt a clear and precise envy. There was no reason in the world that could justify my not being able to swim, I told myself. I knew my answer, though.

At the beginning of my fortieth birthday month my husband asked me what I wanted for a birthday present.
"I want to learn to swim!" I said.
I knew I faced a harsh reality in uttering these words. I decided to try.
Over the days I worked out a strategy so that a possible failure would not affect me so much.
"Let's see, you can try learning to swim for half a year. Don't evaluate yourself until then. If you succeed it will be a nice gift you will give yourself." Said "my brave self" to "my fearful self."
I knew it doesn't take that long to learn to swim but I had already accumulated forty years of fear of water.

I started my swimming lessons in the second week of May. I was put to float with the toddlers in a one-meter deep pool. There I was asked to put my face in the water and grab my legs with my arms to make a ball with my body. In that position I floated for the first time.

"The water is almost up to my neck" I thought every time I stood up. An impulse of fear hovered in my mind but the joy of floating was more powerful.

I spent a week clinging to a float, splashing around with my feet stretched out. In the third week my coach took me, without a float, to the dreaded fifty-meter pool. There he taught me the freestyle swim. Face in the water, kick, breaststroke two or three times, face sideways, breathe. Face in the water, kick, breaststroke two or three times, side face, breathe. Face in the water, kick, brace two or three times, face sideways, breathe...

What a nice feeling of a brain full of oxygen! Ismael, my coach, had told me that if I was scared or if anything happened to me to grab the rails. But that was an extreme measure.

The pool start at the starting springboard and end at fifty meters! He emphasized.

The first three days I swam half the pool, succumbed and looked for help from the rail. Ismael would look at me and smile. He knew I was trying. On the fourth day I challenged myself to do the fifty meters without stopping. When I reached the end the first time my heart was pounding like a crazy drum.

Then I dove in and stared at the blue shadows the sun makes, as it breaks through the waves, at the bottom of the pool. The pounding of my heart disappeared as I enjoyed the movement of those blue shadows. A beautiful silence filled my mind. A sense of having returned to a place of beginning from where I had been unjustly displaced. I was in a state of deep bliss.

I lifted my head to grab the aluminum ladder, climb out of the water and met the smiling gaze of my coach.

"You're ready for competitions." He said in a joking tone.
I smiled. I was happy! It never crossed my mind that four months later I would be part of my university's faculty swim team. I represented my university in front of the other universities at the biannual sports days.

That was one of my most amazing experiences. There were very good swimmers on the team. I entered the group just because I knew how to swim, to complete the required number of swimmers per university. But I had no expectation of winning.

"I only accompany in the team events." I made that clear from the beginning.
Yet I was scored in all the events.
"It's just for the score. It doesn't matter if you come in last." They told me.

So it was. With the exception of the backstroke competition.

I obediently followed the team's directions. I got to my lane, placed my feet firmly on the pool wall and took my backstroke starting position. When the start announcement sounded I pushed myself back as firmly as I could and began to brace and kick. I was looking at the sky, watching the clouds go by, thinking about anything and everything, while my body did what it had to do.

Suddenly I began to feel a commotion coming from the stands where my university classmates were, among them my husband. I identified a loud whistling sound my husband was making and I thought I heard my name. Then I heard my husband's voice saying what I never thought possible.

"You are in the first position, in the first position. Finish it off, finish it off!"

I understood that in those seconds I had to do my best. I swam with all my might until I felt the pool wall hit my head.

I turned around in the water, submerged and came back out. I looked up at the stage. My companions were applauding, amazed, laughing.

That afternoon I was presented with a gold medal.