I’ve been struggling with the “What Ifs” all week stemming from a couple of close calls earlier in the week. On Sunday, my family took off for a few days of vacation with me extended family and on that day within the span of about 3 hours my wife and I had our two scariest moments of parenting (short of my wife’s water breaking at 27 weeks of pregnancy with our first child and all that went with her being delivered at 30 weeks).We had our first, “Where is our child?” moment in a public setting. Colin is a runner. I was taking him to the bathroom, but had to pause briefly to toss a bunch of stuff in the trash. I lost track of him for no more than 5 seconds and he was gone. I quickly went to the front to make sure he didn’t go outside. After a couple minutes of panic, he was in the men’s bathroom. He knew where the bathroom was and managed to open the door. I had looked in there, but he was I think behind a door or something and I didn’t see him the first time I looked.He was spooked and we all took a while to regroup. We show up at a rental house that we all rented for a few days that had a pool. Turns out the door wouldn’t shut all the way unless it was locked. Within 15 minutes we were in our bedroom where we all were going to be and getting out the swimsuits and floaties and swim gear and we had another scare.Everyone was in the room and both Christine and I were putting the suitcase in the closet for a minute and then I turn around and in the corner of my eye, through a see-through sliding glass door, my naked 2 1/2 year old son submerged up to his head in the hot tub outside.I took off running and as I rounded the corner where the door to the pool was, he was completely submerged. He managed to catch a step in the hot tub and got high enough to get some air and then went back down for good. That was when I dove and reached in and grabbed him and pulled him up. We hugged for like 5 minutes and then my wife and daughter came out and realized what happened.Probably the worst feeling I’ve ever had as a parent as I was overcome with the magnitude of what happened. What if there was no sliding glass door in our room which allowed me to see the hot tub? What if in those 5 seconds I took my eyes off of him at the restaurant he was taken? What if he had drown because of a dysfunctional door and losing track of him for 30 seconds while we were looking for his floaties? That frightful alternative reality carries a darkness I can’t even fathom.It’s been a few days, but I’ve been carrying this around all week. The What Ifs can really be horrifying and it takes a lot of self-control to not spiral into the darkness of what might of been. I think it’s important to recognize the magnitude of an experience, but it seems to me to be better for my soul to choose immense gratitude to God for dodging a bullet than to enter into a darkness that is better left in the unknown.Have you ever thought about how to process the close calls and what ifs of your life? Feel free to pass any wisdom on to me and others who might have had similar experiences.
On the bright side, I managed to cross off a life-long dream from my bucket list – I got to be Baywatch Beav for one crazy minute. Although I would gladly erase that experience from the memory banks.
