The Life Raft

Somehow, after the last hurricane, it seemed very important to buy a life raft complete with oars.

It only seats three, our kids live on the other side of the island and they are young and strong and capable. I thought the life raft would help them feel better about our safety. It hasn’t.

I figured it would be my husband, our dog and me in the raft. My husband, however, has lost his seat — he was not very appreciative of my purchase, and that’s putting it lightly.

“Where will you row if the island is flooded?” he asked.

I actually have no idea, but smartly decided that the better answer was a question, “Where will you swim?”

The life raft is in a large box and is extremely heavy. It sits in the entry of our home because he refuses to put it in the garage. I refuse to ask anyone else to do it because I am angry that he won’t do it. So there it sits.

The truth of the matter is, the few people we have mentioned the life raft to have sort of sided with him. They will also be swimming.

Decisions I have made throughout the years haven’t always been popular, but to me they have been important and allowed me to sleep at night. I once lugged metal roll down escape ladders into my children’s rooms and shoved them under their beds after a quick tutorial. How my young children would lift and attach the heavy ladders to the windows in a fire or an emergency, when I could barely lift them, was not as important as the fact that they had them available.

Another example, my absolute refusal to allow my youngest to have the opportunity to fly a single engine plane (with a pilot) when he was a freshman in high school. One engine? Seriously? He reminds me often that while he spent the day in the library with the one other student in his class who was not allowed to go in the plane and whose mother wrote books about ghosts in Ohio, not one single student perished in a plane crash.

Somehow, I know that’s not the point and my instinct related to survival has only become stronger as I have become older.

A more recent purchase was a special tool that breaks the windshield in a car if it goes off the bridge — flashlight attached. I actually bought a slew of them for all of my family members who live near bridges. But would we really have the quickness of mind to get these out and use them correctly?

Are the escape ladders, windshield breakers and life raft practical tools for survival? Or are they metaphors?

I have always loved and appreciated my life and all of my blessings. Of course it’s not perfect, but as I get older everything seems so much more fragile and my need to protect it gets more and more fierce.

My strict rules for the life raft are probably for naught because if the time comes and I am rowing around Daniel Island with my dog, as my friends swim by it will be very difficult for me to avoid inviting them to cling on. Yeah, I guess I will let my husband hang on too — the dog is really crazy about him. We will be like an enormous floating charm bracelet. I know in my heart that Blondies will have a station to serve coffee and bagels and Laura Alberts will have box lunches as we raft on by. I have to believe that. Life is too precious to think anything else.

In the meantime, I will continue to sleep well and I will figure a way to turn my metaphor into a coffee table or a lovely planter until I need it.

Daniel Island Publishing

225 Seven Farms Drive
Unit 108
Daniel Island, SC 29492 

Office Number: 843-856-1999
Fax Number: 843-856-8555

 

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