A Fun Ride

A FUN RIDE by Terri Andersen
This past summer, three of my sons decided to go white-water rafting in Tennessee. Two of the boys lived in North Carolina and the other son lived in Connecticut, from where he and a friend traveled to meet the other two in Tennessee. After the adventure they said they had an exciting ride and I was glad to hear that.
Last week Jim, one of our sons from North Carolina, came to visit my husband and me in Connecticut and somehow we got on the subject of near death experiences. Conversation was flowing smoothly until Jim told about the time he felt certain he was about to die and how surprised he was at how peaceful he felt and ready to accept it.
In typical mother astonishment and aghast at such news, I asked when that took place, since it wasn't something we had ever talked about before. Much to my surprise, I got the full story of what happened on the white-water rafting trip last summer.
It turned out that at a certain point in the rafting experience, the boat hit some rocks and the guide got out of the boat to direct it away from the rocks. When she thought it cleared the rocks, she jumped back into the raft and capsized it, causing everyone in the raft to fall into the water.
One of our sons broke a finger when he tried to hold onto a rope while falling into the rapids, and the other two found themselves unable to balance themselves into an upright position. Jim, the son who was relating the story, said he was upside down in the water, caught under the raft, and full of water in his lungs because he didn't get a chance to hold his breath before he fell.
It was at that time that he felt sure he was about to die, his lungs bursting and his mind confused about which way was up. Finally someone yelled to him to grab a rope they were trying to reach him with but he told us he just couldn't grasp it, until finally there was a knot at the bottom of the rope that kept his hand anchored and they were able to pull him up from the water.
As it turned out, he wasn't the only one in trouble. Another son had fallen into the water also, and couldn't stop shaking when he was pulled out. Son number three was the one whose finger caught on a rope and who landed up with a finger broken in two places before he was dragged back into the raft. His friend landed up being picked up by another raft just in time.
“Oh, my God,” I said, “what a horrible experience. I bet you'll never go white water rafting again,” only to hear my son say, “Are you kidding? That was exciting. Sure
we'll go again. Now we know what to do to keep from falling into the Water.”
Oh, vey - and they wonder why mothers get gray hair.