How do you coach a newly blind nine-year-old to swim?
At first, we would just hold hands and we would talk as he would kick. He loved music, so we would talk about music, and he would sing, and we would keep going. As he got more confident with me in the water, I went from two hands to one. Then from there, I went to one hand on his stomach so he could use his hands. We would build upon our skills, and it got to a point where he loved to spin in the water. I’d get him to spin, and he’d spin one or two times and then he’d get tired. Finally, we worked up to 10, 15 spins, and then from there, we worked on putting our faces in the water and reaching above our heads. Each process, he’d grow into that.
To him, water was an escape – it was a release from all his pain and fear, because he knew the boundary. As a blind person, you have a stick so you can hear echoes. But if you don’t have a common place that’s set up and is constant, it’s hard. This was a constant place where he could get his energy out. He felt comfortable. He would talk to me. Some of it was just talking, because a lot of people don’t talk to people who are different.
The water made him grow as a young man. What we were doing in the water, it translated outside the pool. I worked with him all the way up until the age of 14.
The hardest part was hearing that he got sick again. He lost his leg to cancer, and then he passed away.
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