Sorry Daddy...

I am the oldest offspring of a Mountain girl (born and brought up in the hilly rubber plantations of Ranny) and a Kuttanadan boy ( Kuttanad = Alleppy,the home of paddy fields and rivers famous for the snake boat races in Kerala). Dad takes to swimming like fish to the water and the only water mom has seen is deep below in the wells dug on her mountain top home. Me and my siblings, having been brought up in deserts of Oman in the Arabian peninsula, are used to water as in taps and Beaches, neither of which we can go swimming in. School vacations in my dad's hometown meant water, water everywhere and at Mom's place we trekked our way to everywhere. Mom's fear of water always made us wear inflatable floats whenever we went "swimming" and with my dad nearby water never held any fear. But its hard to swim with inflatable’s, so here we are grownups now and neither of us know any bit of swimming, except standing/sitting/lying down in the baby pool !

Deep within me though, there has always been a desire to learn swimming, and so at the age of 30 here I am with hubby’s colleagues (our partners in adventure), who convince me that there is no time like Now !!
First Floating, then it was freestyle =stretching + leg clapping(as our instructor calls it) +head down + hand movement. 4 days across the breadth of the shallow end(3 feet) of the swimming pool doing the above and our 'Sir' decides its time for us to take the plunge at the deep end (16 feet = 2 and half times my height). He had us get down the steps at the deep end and hold our breath, (oh by the way, we go down to the bottom holding the step rails)and to surface we did 'leg cycling' and 'hand flapping' (all in the water) !
In 20 minutes he decides it is time for us to walk off the edge of the pool (at the deep end mind you !). We have to come up to the surface doing what we had just learnt. And All of a sudden i have butterflies in the stomach, fear induced fever, dizziness and the like. As usual I need to see the two others survive the ordeal, before I was going to do anything of the sort. So there goes Prashant walking coolly off the edge, and after some tense seconds he surfaces. Next, I watch Vaishali jump off the edge as though she has been doing this all her life (I think 'who knows?') and a few seconds later she too surfaces. "Now Leena, your turn" brings my brain back into focus and here I am inches away from the edge. I can hear hens clucking but it seems to come from within. While I am mentally reciting all the memory verses i have learnt from kindergarten, 'Sir' says "Leena jump, you will surely come up" (Now that’s mighty consolation alright !).I hesitate and mumble something. He sees my fear and hesitation and goes "Can't you see I am here in the water ! If you struggle, I will surely bring you up. I have been coaching swimming for 13 years".

Splash !! I TAKE THE PLUNGE OFF THE EDGE! I did come up and he was there ! For that moment in time I believed that come what may, 'Sir' had promised to be there !

As I showered and got back, my mind was full. Here I was placing my life in the hands of a man (a human just like me!), willing to trust him to keep his word. Tears ran down my cheeks when I thought of the umpteen times my Daddy God has whispered words of hope. I would weary myself with worry when life demanded leaps of faith. More often than not, life has given me plunges into the deep end. My heart was embarrassed to think that I would so easily trust a stranger, and yet I doubt my Father God for days on end. Surely, I would look back and see his hand, but when life's challenges present itself ,I am yet to fully learn to joyfully take the leap into those strong heavenly arms ! How hurt would my Daddy God be at my unbelief !

Sorry Daddy...