Sunday, March 24, 2013

One-Way Ticket

There was a moment I was sure I’d be coming home from vacation in a body bag. 

I was travelling through Mexico with my girlfriend, Susan, and we stopped at Puerto Escondido, a quiet beach town on the south coast.  On our first day there, we went to the beach. 

The shore there was not the packed beaches we’re used to in the States.  It was deserted – no bathers, no lifeguard, no one in sight.  We could have been on an uninhabited island. 

The sun was high and hot, and Susan, a slender actress with long, brown hair, got busy sunning herself.  I decided to try the water.  I waded in until I was mid-chest deep, where I stood enjoying the view of the endless ocean and cloudless blue sky.

In the blink of an eye, the water level was over my head.  There had been no wave, no warning, just sudden depth.  I struggled to the surface, only to be pulled down by the undertow.  Again I fought my way up, gasping for air, and again I was sucked back down.  When I broke the surface a third time, I thought of screaming to Susan for help.  I didn’t.  Even in my panic I knew there was nothing she could do but endanger herself. 

After what seemed like an eternity of being tumbled helplessly washing machine-like beneath the waves, I was totally exhausted, spent.  In my mind’s eye, I saw Susan boarding the plane home accompanied by my body in a zippered plastic bag.  It was over; I was going to die in Mexico.  It was to be a one-way ticket. 

At that very moment of total, somewhat calm resignation to the inevitable, I found myself standing mid-chest high in the water.  The ocean had receded as suddenly as it had come. 

I staggered out of the water.  Susan smiled, lifted her camera, and snapped a shot of me as I collapsed down on the blanket next to her.  I was shaken to the core.  It wasn’t until the next day that I could speak about it to her. 

Twenty years later, that photograph of me, pale, soaked, and looking like a man returned from the grave, is hanging on the wall of my home office.  It’s a reminder to me that life can be capricious, and every day – every single day of life – is precious.