On the drive over to the Berkeley Marina for a walk this evening, I heard the song Heaven by Beyonce. I normally skip the track because it brings me to tears over the memory of Mas, but tonight I let it play. He’s been on my mind a lot lately. The other night at dinner with friends, we talked about how many people in the Philippines don’t know how to swim. My friend suspects it’s because people have so much respect for the ocean there that they think you’re a fool for trying to dance with the water. I added that most of the people I know in The Gambia also didn’t know how to swim. I left it at that, but it brought up a memory for me that I keep repeating over and over.
Mas came to visit us in my posh corporate apartment. It was a gorgeous facility right on the ocean with the most beautiful infinity pool. We hardly ever swam in it because Ras didn’t know how to swim and the pool didn’t have a heater, but for whatever reason this day that Mas came to visit we got in the water. I had him in the pool with me and I must’ve looked away for just a moment. When I looked back at him, he was quietly and slowly drowning. I pulled him to me and saved him, scared but also reassuring. I think about the look on his face that day and I wonder what was going through my head. I wish I could return to that moment and will myself to realize that he needed to learn to swim and that, even though I can barely swim myself, I was probably the most qualified person in his life to teach him.
I know in my logical brain that there is no use ruminating over the fact that I had a chance to teach a boy to swim who eventually drowned in a big puddle of water. I know that it’s silly to live in a world of shoulda, woulda, couldas. I don’t really hold myself responsible, especially now that the sting of the pain of his death isn’t so visceral.
I guess, I just can’t help but wish for a different outcome. I wish I could go back to that day and try to teach him. He was so smart, I think he could’ve learned quickly. Maybe I could’ve planted a little nugget, a little muscle memory that could’ve helped him.
Oh, well. There’s no sense I can possibly make of it, no way to end this post on a high note other than to say:
lately I’ve been missing my little buddy Mas. Tonight I heard a song that made me think of him and I allowed myself to stare down the road not travelled. It’s still ridiculously unfair that we lost him, but at least he was deeply, truly loved. Last week, my friend Alison, who I traveled to Africa with, and I were talking about how people could look at the photos we took when we were in Africa with all the kids, including Mas, and think we were just some wacked out white folks with a savior complex. Maybe we were a little bit, at least initially. What I do know is that my connection to Mas and to my life in Africa are among the realest things I’ve ever felt and my friendship with Mas was and continues to be one of the biggest joys in my entire life. Loving him and losing him defined me in ways I can’t really unpack. I think my dogged determination to live a full and happy life comes directly from him. If he doesn’t get to live a full life, I guess I’m trying to find a way to live an even bigger one on his behalf?
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