Childhood Scar

When I was 10 years old, I lost part of my innocence.

No, I didn't lose my virginity or commit a crime or egregious sin. No, I didn't break any family code or societal law. 

What I did do was my 10-year-old best.  But in my youthful mind, I somehow concluded my effort wasn't good enough.  I saved a boy's life, but not his brother.

In the summer of 1960 my parents hosted a picnic for a couple of Baltimore families who also owned Bassett hounds at our home your St. Michael's Maryland.  During that afternoon soon after everyone had eaten, one of the mothers started to call for her two sons. Everyone quickly started searching for them, but I became the one who eventually found them a few moments later.

I immediately ran to our pool on the other side of our house. When I arrived I was shocked to see both lying motionless at the bottom of the deep end. I immediately yelled "I found them."

Within seconds two adults behind me, dove in. Frozen in time as I watched their father jump in and pull them both out. I stood poolside transfixed and in shock.

In the scurry and flurry of the confusion my father and mother soon directed and relegated me to our family's house to "watch over" my three younger brothers (9, 7, 3) and a few unfamiliar other indoors away from the pool. I was the oldest child of about seven or eight others, I assumed this task dutifully without hesitation.

But when I got inside, I actually watched the aftermath of the tragedy unfold from a second-story window. Soon a cavalcade of curiosity-seeking, ambulance-chasing cars appeared in an enormous dust cloud on our mile long dirt road and parked all over our lawn. To my young imagination it seemed like hundreds of people suddenly descended upon the pool scene as the boys' parents attempted to resuscitate their sons.

Aerial shot of Solitude. Note pool to right. The picnic was on the other side of the house closer to the kitchen.

That night after the crowd and commotion dispersed and our guests had departed, I anticipated my parents explaining what had happened. I was filled with questions and curiosity. I could barely comprehend the magnitude and the meaning of what had happened so I asked them questions, but other than telling me that the older of the two brothers did not survived, my parents choose not to discuss what happened. And they never spoke about the incident again. 

Of course, I did not know anything about grief or death. This was my first encounter with death. I  did not imagine how my parents were handling the day's shocking turn of events. And, of course, my parents did not seem to imagine how their oldest son or children would be processing their first experience with death. I am imagine now they could not comprehend the eventual impact it would have on his life. 

I eventually saw my role in the rescue as having frozen poolside. At the time I was a capable swimmer. Even though I had never taken a CPR course, I had been swimming since I was 4 or 5. I had also been placed in charge of cleaning, painting and maintaining it.  I never experienced my rescue efforts as heroic. I had been, after all, in my immature mind too late. What I felt and experienced was instead confusion and then guilt. So the more I processed the event, the more I felt my hesitation and not jumping into the pool could have saved the older brother's life. After all, I was the first to find them, but all I could do was scream for help.

Over the weeks that followed, I began to feel guilty that I had not responded quicker. I somehow began to blame myself for the boy's drowning. And, of course, I could not tell my parents. And this was 1960 and way before counseling for trauma was widely available or acceptable. My parents never spoke to me about the incident again.

This tragedy did not define me or damage me, but from that point forward it tarnished and tainted my view of adulthood. The message was clear to me. Don't discuss sensitive topics and don't make parents uncomfortable with probing questions. Yes, I have long ago processed and reconciled what happened, but how I experienced it planted a seed that 55 years later still resonates. Maybe it was life's first inevitable event that chipped away at my parent's deified veneer. After this traumatic experience I certainly began to doubt my parents as well as myself.

http://childdevelopmentinfo.com/how-to-be-a-parent/communication/talk-to-kids-death/

I grew up near the center of this map of Talbot County, Maryland from 1950-1972
With water all around me growing up, I was never wary of it and only witnessed one water-related life tragedy
and it happened at my home in a pool.

And it took me quite a while before I could clean the pool and swim in it after that trauma. 

P.S. Surprisingly 14 years later I reacted and jumped into another pool far away from home....maybe as a symbolic act to atone for what I couldn't do at 10.  That subsequent impulsive choice changed my life forever. I  paid a dear price for that decision as I describe in Sailing with One Eye Open. And as I relate, it had many positive consequences as well.

Note: Another irony was that the Basset Hounds were all penned in and surrounded by fences, but back in 1960 our pool had no fence around it because our home was miles from towns and population. This was way before fenced in pools in urban areas. The dogs were safe, but the children were not. 

As you can see from the aerial photo there is still no fence around the pool while there are no more dog pens or kennel on the property.