Being a Dad

I can't think of any truer description of what it means to be a dad than something that happened last Saturday.

Our friends John and Sheri wanted to go swimming at the beach, which you would think is a tall order in Oklahoma, but it turns out that at least one of the local lakes has some artificial beaches on it. One dollar per person and you're swimming at a (fresh-water) beach. I think Sheri was probably the one who wanted to go more than John did... I think John was a little gun-shy about it because of a recent VPSB incident (Very Painful Sun Burn). Anyway, as it turns out, paradoxically, the thing that would seem to be very difficult (finding a beach in Oklahoma) but which it turns out should have been very easy (Sheri knew where one was) turned out to be very difficult anyway because we've gotten so much rain lately... the first swimming area we went to was actually closed because of high water! But Sheri knew of another one, so we went there and it was open. John & Sheri had brought some floaties, two inner tube-like floats and one of those mattress things to lay out on top of the water. They let Mikey use one of the inner tubes and Sheri used the other one, and John was on the mattress.

We were having a great time, but eventually John and Sheri got out and it was just me and Mikey. Mikey was still in his inner tube and I had inherited the other one when Sheri got out of the water. So Mikey and I were floating around, and I looked around and he had drifted into some deeper water. It wasn't that deep, and the whole swimming area was kind of cordoned off so he wouldn't have drifted out into the boating lanes or anything, but I wanted him back where he could get to shore easily. So I called to him but he couldn't get moving in the right direction, so I paddled out in my inner tube and got him moving back toward shallower water.

So after that I asked him if he wanted to go out where it was deeper; it would be OK if I was with him. He was in his inner tube, plus last summer he did a great job in some swimming lessons, so I knew he'd be OK. He wanted to, so we drifted on out. We were out where it was actually too deep even for 6'4" me to stand up when Mikey started to try to reposition himself in the inner tube, and because he was on top of it he flipped right out of it and into the water!

It was less than a second... flip, splash, GRAB, and I had pulled Mikey back up and attached him to my inner tube. I feel fairly confident that he would have gotten back to shore if I hadn't been there (and if he didn't panic), but he didn't have to... Daddy was right there with him. Together on my inner tube we paddled out to where his inner tube had shot out from under him into even deeper water and retrieved it, and then we went back to shallow water. I asked him if he was scared when it happened. He said, "No... it was FUN!"

Because Daddy was there, what was a scary and potentially life-threatening situation instead became a fun adventure. I think maybe that's a big part of what being a father means... changing disaster into adventure. Besides, when we keep our eyes on the Father that all fathers are supposed to emulate, isn't that what He does for each of us?