the day I almost died in Hawaii

There have been few times in my life I’ve been so acutely aware of my own mortality, of how small I really am.

Most of the time, as a fit, strong, strapping young man, I walk into situations feeling in control. I don’t expect my person to be tossed around or unable to situate myself; if someone pushed me, I could push them back.

My body is autonomous.
When I drive a car, I’m controlling the car.
When I swim, I go where I want in the water.
Et cetera.

But the fourth day my family was in Hawaii two months ago, I experienced what it was like to have absolutely no control over what happens to my body, to where it gets thrown or how.

My brother and I were snorkeling around Blackrock, swimming with some turtles. The depth was sort of 8 feet to the sandy bottom, but rocks shot up all over, to mere inches beneath the surface of the water. The gentle waves glided us back and forth across and between the shallow rocks as we explored the bay with the turtles for half an hour.

My brother went back in to talk to my parents, leaving me alone. And that’s when the ‘sneaker’ set of waves came ripping through. I was watching the turtles when suddenly a massive wave lifted me up and hurled me backwards, toward the beach. It slammed me into a rock and I felt my back get scraped by the rough surface.

I got my head above water, breathed, and tried to find something — anything — to grab onto and be safe and secure, when the second wave lifted me up and carried me backward again into a second rock. I was still hurdling backward in the water, not knowing if my head would crack into one of the hard, black rocks. Fortunately, two waves into the set, my head was ok.

But I still couldn’t get any sort of control. I felt like a beetle who had been set on its back, only I was also being tossed hither and yon by an angry ocean.

A third wave picked me up and slammed me into a different set of rocks, still miraculously avoiding my head. I realized that I could do nothing except hope and pray that the waves would stop soon and that they wouldn’t hit my head against the rocks.

I can’t remember if it was three waves, or four, or five or six. But eventually I was carried to a place where I could put my foot down and pull myself to the side of the channel. Other people were there, watching me get tossed like a caesar salad, but couldn’t do anything to help without endangering themselves.

When I finally got both feet under me and could stand up, holding onto a rock and bracing for another wave (less powerful now that the set had rolled through), I took inventory of my body. No broken legs because I could walk. I looked all over my skin — a few good bruises and scrapes, but no massive wounds with blood gushing out.

I had somehow survived, but it would be hours before I could shake the feeling of powerlessness and the taste of mortality that clung bitter to my tongue. I had been messed up by the ocean. I had seen the raw, brute strength of a billion drops of water which are altogether, incomprehensibly more powerful than me as they slammed me against stones.

My family had seen me from the shore, and my dad later recounted how disturbing it was seeing his son thrown around, completely out of control, like a rag doll.

It was the type of experience that I can be grateful for, now knowing that I survived with very minimal injuries, but don’t want to try again.

I imagine the parts of the world that are even more dangerous than a family beach with the occasional rogue swell. I’ve seen seaside cliffs where the tide slams into even more jagged rocks, and seen storms that raise up monsters out of water.

I’m all set for my reminders of my own frailty for a while.

And I’m glad. It’s a good reminder that you’re not the mightiest being in the universe. You’re not even the most mighty being on a family beach. I’m not the Alpha or Omega, and some poorly timed waves at a Hawaii resort could wipe me from the earth in a matter of seconds.

But it didn’t, and I’m grateful.

e

Day 30 of 100 Days of Blog

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