Miami, notorious for its gorgeous beaches and steaming weather, making it the perfect city to swim and thrive in the outdoors. Despite this, not everyone who grows up in Miami knows how to swim. For one family in particular, swimming was never a priority. They lived in a house with a large backyard yet never owned a pool. The parents were too consumed with work to even relax with the children at the beach or a public pool.

As the kids grew and matured, they began to feel excluded. All their friends knew how to swim resulting in embarrassment for the ones who didn’t. During the summer of 2019, the parents decided to give the privilege of learning how to swim to the children by buying them an above-ground pool. The children grew a sense of adoration for the pool and attempted to swim every day.

One day, their daughter developed an idea to try something new. Her parents were at work and her siblings were the only other people in the pool. She wanted to see if she could float on the water by clipping her legs together with a life vest and holding one in each hand. She climbed up the ladder in the pool. She clipped the life vest around her legs, the straps tightened around her calves. She then grabbed a life vest in each hand. She sat there for a moment, smiling about how brilliant her idea was. Looking around her backyard, her dogs running around on the grass and her brothers splashing each other in the pool. She took a deep breath and jumped off the ladder, feeling the rush of cool water surrounding her. She could hear the water splashing as she sank below the surface. She tried holding on to the life vests - but they slipped out of her hands and floated away. Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. She thrashed around in the water, desperately trying to get her head above the surface, but her legs were still floating, and her head was trapped underwater. She felt panic rush over her as she realized she might never be able to breathe again. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her lungs were burning for air. Just as she thought she couldn’t hold her breath any longer. Her brother grabbed her and pulled her to the surface. She gasped for air, the cool air filling her lungs.

It’s been 4 years since that day and she still doesn’t know how to swim that well but is a lot better. She never got afraid of the water. It was a scary experience for her but she learned a valuable lesson and tells this funny story to so many people now.