It was the mid-eighties. My dad was repairing a gumpole fence along a river on the Baynesfield Estate. I forget which. It was mid-morning. The day was overcast. Chilly enough for a tracksuit. It had recently rained. So the river was full: swollen thick against its banks. You’d think too full and too deep to move. You’d be wrong. Move it did. The river surged forward in fast strokes with its quicksilver currents and eddies hidden beneath a milk chocolatey brown surface.
Bored with watching a pair of pliers twist wire, my sister and I began throwing rocks into the water. Little ones at first. Then egging each other on to throw bigger, higher, further. It was such fun watching the river open her brown viscous mouth to receive our granite gifts, burying them in her muddy depths. We shrieked with delight at the sound of every watery thud.
My sister was on the edge of the bank while I was bent over trying to unearth a particularly large clod when I heard a splash that wasn’t like all the others. I looked up. She was gone. A split second later, my dad pitched himself off the side and into the water. In the time that it took for me to register what I’d seen and run towards the bank, he was pulling a straggle of purple limbs to his chest. She was a sodden shaking mess of mud and shock. Wide-eyed and terrified. Too terrified even to cry. He was the same. Dazed, we made our way to the bakkie, my sister in his arms. The only sound was the rush of the river. The lazy brown swollen river that flowed faster than we thought. The river that took our rocks. The river that nearly took my four-year-old sister.
My dad recounts his version of that day and how out of the corner of his eye, he saw her lift that last rock, throw it and go straight in with it. He said he didn’t even pause to think. He jumped straight into where he saw her head go under. He knew he’d never be able to see her in the brown water, so he grabbed frantically at anything he could. It was sheer luck that he caught hold of that purple tracksuit. Before she was swept away under the moving blanket of muddy water. It all happened in seconds. She was there. And then she wasn’t.
A couple of weeks ago my three-year-old son threw a tantrum on the pavement on our way to school, fell and a wall broke his fall. And his head. A neat little gash on his noggin that, to be honest, I wasn’t too concerned about. But then he went floppy and lost consciousness for a bit. He came around quickly though and was fine. Upon closer inspection the gash needed stitches. And I needed to make my maiden voyage to the local A&E in Slough. Five years of life in the UK and my first trip to A&E. Not bad going for a mother like me. Not bad going for kids like mine.
Sitting in the Wexham Park paediatric emergency unit, amidst the ill and injured little people, it struck me once again how everything can change in an instant. I had made very different plans for my Wednesday. And they certainly didn't involve a trip to casualty. We spend our lives creating a fragile reality. Building what we believe to be enough. Hoping that our constructs will hold. We become complacent in the solidity of their structure. But the simple truth is that in a flash, a river can sweep it all away. A little bump in the road. A second can change everything. And we can spend a lifetime trying to come to terms with the consequences.
I often bemoan the quagmire of my motherhood. At times, I even resent it. This trip to the A&E was a cheap yet valuable reality check for me. A 'block-my-nose-and-swallow' dose of perspective that tasted foul af but was exactly the medicine I needed. I think back now to that day at the river when we were children and I don’t feel the haunting terror I once did. I just feel gratitude. And an overwhelming sense of relief. I know that my dad would've held my sister a little bit tighter after that day. Just as I did with my son last week. Immensely thankful for health. For life. For every precious second we're given. For every second that counts.
