I’m not sure what people expect from us.  We don’t own a pool, belong to a country club, or go to the beach more than once a year.  However, my father could not ever swim and it was very important to him to make sure that I could.  My fair red haired mother freckled her skin broiling in the sun to take me to swim lessons at the local community college.  Being part Indian, I just tanned a dark red and never burned.  But my mother still sacrificed to bring me and my father, who had contracted polio when he was three days old, only wished for me to know what he did not.  I went on to swim in junior high and high school and did pretty well.  All my parents really wanted though for me was to know that I could swim.  Before Mama passed she was very concerned that our little one knew how to swim on her own.  And I have somewhat stupidly and belatedly realized one MUST swim before going into the ocean.  So her Daddy and I were beyond proud and pleased when our little one was graduated from the beginning level to an intermediate one.  She went from a Dolphin 1 to a Dolphin 1-2.  Dolphin 2 is truly independent and that is what we are really looking forward to her achieving.  The American author Robert Collier, founder of Collier’s Weekly, once said:

“Most of us, swimming against the tides of trouble the world knows nothing about, need only a bit of praise or encouragement – and we will make the goal.”

That is all we want for our little one … to make the goal.