Fear does not have any special power unless you empower it by submitting to it. (Les Brown)

My son had to rescue me today.

A group of us decided to go tubing down the Raven River. The campground shuttle takes you three miles up the river, and you float gently downstream for about 1 ½ hours. Mom, Aunt Mickey, Uncle Herb, my three kids, two of my cousin Herbie’s children, agreed with me that it sounded like fun. So we rented our tubes and climbed aboard the shuttle.

I made it as far as the first fall. Actually, I got stuck on several rocks before that, but I had expected that. (The last time I went tubing -- on a much shorter trip -- my butt was bruised so badly that I couldn’t sit down the rest of the week.) The first rapid is a sudden drop of about two feet. I’d really like to claim that it was much higher than that (it certainly felt higher!), but even 2’ might be a slight exaggeration. Somehow, my tube got stuck just at the top of the rapid. I wiggled, and twisted, but couldn’t get the tube to move. Meanwhile, water is building up behind me, until there was enough to push my tube through the opening in the rocks. Unfortunately, I went face first, upside down in the water. My tube went floating off without me and I, panicked, couldn’t remember if I could swim. My shoe had somehow come off in the fall, and floated past me after the tube.

I managed to get both the shoe and the tube, and then found my way to a calmer section of the river where I proceeded to have a full blown panic attack. I couldn’t breathe. All I could think was that since I was the last one of my group to come down the river, it would be at least two hours before anyone would realize they needed to send out a rescue party to get me. It was awful!

Luckily, both my daughter and son saw me go under. While my daughter waited, my son made his way back over the rocks and the river to rescue me. Since there wasn’t a chance on this earth that I was going to try that again, he helped me up the extremely steep bank (and with more patience than even a mother has a right to expect). I sent him back to his sister to finish the trip, but instead he returned (after letting her know that we were both safe) to wait with me since it would be a couple of hours before we could get a ride back to the campground. While we waited, he kept me in the shade, and found me pretty river rocks for souvenirs. A camp van happened by and we were able to hitch a ride back to camp in time to see the others come floating into camp.

I’m really upset that I was too chicken to do the trip. Apparently, I missed a great time – beautiful scenery and lots of thrills. On the other hand, I can still sit down.