How to Save a Drowning Person

People seldom drown along our Ajigasawa coast and when they do they are usually trying to drown. But at Takayama, where we vacation in the summers, there are currents that catch a person unawares and nearly every year some unsuspecting swimmer is lost to the ocean.

The Takayama Coast

I, too, have been caught in the currents. And so I know better than to attempt a barehanded rescue. I have a friend who claimed I saved her life... but I did it from a safe distance. I swam just out of reach and talked her to the shore.

Its a technique that I first used when I was a teen-ager at camp many, many years ago. And whether the people I've "rescued" (not many, but over the years there have been some) would have made it to shore without me I cannot say. But there were several that I'm sure would have taken me down if I had been within armsreach!

Yesterday I thought of the parallels in other areas of life when a young friend of mine told me how she bailed out of a love relationship that was sinking her.

Why will the young men swim here?!

My husband has always told his daughters that marriage is not the place for "rescuing" pleasant but troubled young men, and, today, like the mother who placed the warning memorial stone near the treacherous water above (after her son perished there), I'd like to go on record as saying that dating is also not a place for "rescuing"...