A funny thing about being in a vulnerable state is that you revisit events from your past and shed a new light on it.
One of them had a tremendous impact on me. It happened when I was 6 years old.
I was living in Spain at the time, in the suburbs of Madrid. Our house was part a small complex of 8 houses sharing a common pool. You would access the pool through the backyard.
In wintertime, the pool was never emptied. The water would become dirty brown. Logs or wooden boards would be floating on the water.
One day, my parents were receiving friends over at home. They had boys who were slightly older than I and my brother who was 4 years old.
I wanted to take the boys to the pool to show them around. And play with the wooden planks floating on the water. My parents said ok but that I had to watch out that my little brother didn’t follow us to the pool.
A few moments later, we were all around the pool, including my little brother who wanted to come and play with us.
My little brother pushed a floating wooden board and moved too far from the edge of the pool. He tipped over and fell into the pool.
I ran towards the edge where he was last seen. I could see my brother all dressed up in his winter clothes wanting to reach towards the surface with his hand. His mouth was open like he wanted to scream. I saw that he was sinking, probably due to the weight of his wet clothes.
In a split second, I fell onto my knees and dove my arm into the water. I grabbed his hand before it was too late and pulled him out of the water.
Startled, my brother ran home crying. I remember seeing him running home. I thought to myself that I had done something terrible.
I don’t quite remember what happened after, but it mustn’t have been fun. My parents must have punished me for not having kept my brother away from the pool. The fact that I don’t remember is probably a sign of some form of trauma. All I know is that from my thought “I did something terrible”, I jumped to thinking “I’m a terrible person”.
I was 6 years old. Now I’m 47.
Looking at the story again, I can see how my interpretation of the events was unreasonable.
My parents should never have put on me the responsibility to watch over my brother. I was 6 years old.
I didn’t do anything wrong. Looking at the events now, I am not a terrible person.
In fact, I am a hero. I showed tremendous courage to act quickly and pull my brother out of the water.
And in the light of this new belief, I started looking at so many other events in my life. In the face of tremendous adversity, I have always showed courage and resilience to overcome them.
I reached over to my phone next to my hospital bed and twitted:
I AM THE HERO OF MY LIFE.
With love,
Laurent