Lifeguarding

As we get closer to next Tuesday, when my girl comes home from Italy, I feel my mood lightening. It has been kind of hard to have her so far away, and it will be good to have her back on the same continent. She will only be home for three days before we drive her up to camp for the last two weeks of the summer session. She will be working there as a counselor assistant for the two weeks, a job her brother, who is a full-fledged counselor there, set up for her. He is excited that they will be working together on the same side of the lake. I think he was impressed when he arrived at camp this summer to realize how well loved his sister was by those who got to know her last year. She made her own imprint in a place where he has long ruled—I think he really enjoyed that.

I will really enjoy the two weeks they are away at camp together. Somehow, knowing I can reach them if anything should go awry, knowing that they are only 2 hours away in the Connecticut woods, knowing they are together and among friends, makes me breathe easier. I am glad my girl had Italy, but now I am glad she's coming home.

Below is a picture of my son at twilight. The lake is just lovely at this camp. My son got his lifeguard certification at the start of the summer. He is also certified in CPR, and has been trained to use the defribrillator thingy that zaps the heart back to life, and he also has some other first aid and field emergency training from his sports medicine program at college and fire search and rescue training from his high school days as an FDNY explorer. My son collects first aid and first responder certifications like other people collect stamps. He'd be perfect for medicine, but says he doesn't want to be in an office. He wants to be the one running onto the field to assess and treat the sports injury.

One of the best things my husband and I did was send our son to live in the woods for a few weeks every summer since he was 11. He loves to have the sky above his head and no walls around him. For a few kids who will probably be his lifelong friends, that camp by the lake is "their place."

My son on lifeguard duty at camp.