SNAP Wednesdays | Not very nice

I hear mumbling at a distance from me, but I ignore it. Special Needs Aquatics Program shares time at the heated therapy pool with senior citizens, so there is always congestion. We helpers watch out for each other to avoid collisions with elderly folks. Safety is number one, especially because all of the youth we teach do not have the motor skills to support themselves in the water. A couple of us are also CPR certified, which is, thankfully, a skill we have yet to employ.

I turn back to J, a teenager with cerebral palsy. We're in the middle of the pool, and working on his breathing. J usually lifts his head straight out of the water to take a gulp of air when I support him in a modified version of front crawl. I tell J, "This time, turn your head to the side to breathe, so your body is more balanced when you come up."

More mumbling. Louder, this time.

The mumbling is coming from a dark-haired woman probably in her sixties. Another elderly woman, who I presume to be her friend, is next to her. She has a noodle (you know, one of those long, fluorescent-colored flotation devices) stuck under her leg. She's flailing backwards a little bit, but the other woman is close enough that I thought she was talking to her.

"I said, 'Get this out from under me!' " The dark-haired woman is talking to me.

I look at J, whose face registered confusion. J cannot stand up on his own, and as his helper, I never leave him alone for even a minute. So I grab him by the armpits and kick us both over to the woman. I shift all of J's weight onto my left arm. With my free right arm, I pull the noodle out from under the woman's leg. She immediately latches onto my right arm. I find myself supporting both an 18-year old boy and an obese woman in the middle of the pool. Even with the buoyancy of the water, having two people cling to you is no joke. I feel us all sinking slowly, even with my frantic kicking.

"Next time I tell you to do something, you better goddamn do it, you m-f-ing idiot!" The dark-haired woman is yelling at me now.

As I'm struggling to keep J's head above water with one arm, the woman's proximate friend finally arouses from her stupor and pries her friend off my body. We're no longer sinking. Thank God. The woman mumbles expletives to her friend and shoots me dirty looks as they scuttle away.

My first thought was, "How dare she?" How dare she blame me when she was clearly the one who lacked water safety skills in the deep end? How dare she interrupt my class session with her expletives and accusatory remarks? How dare she feel a sense of entitlement to my help when my hands were already tied? How dare she insult me when I just saved her from drowning?

J looks at me and says, "That w-was not very nice." I say, "J, I agree. But sometimes, people are just like that." I take a few deep breaths and we resume class.


One of the truest things I've heard in a long time is that it is difficult to have a soft heart and thick skin, said by Pastor Albert at Regen. I think as I build up my "thick skin" by not letting experiences like this phase me, I struggle to retain compassion for people who openly show their ugly side. And the flip side, when I'm at the Emergency Department on Fridays, I see heartbreaking things that make me want to weep--and sometimes, I do; and then my mind is fixated on the brokenness of the human condition, of East Oakland.

Sigh. I'm trying. God, help me please.