The Water Slide | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: The Water Slide | Previous Challenge Entry
By
08/23/07
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On a trip to Washington D.C. when I was eleven, my family and I spent a day King’s Dominion amusement park. I have a few special memories about that day, but what I remember most is the water slide. It was the kind you can ride fully clothed, sitting on a blue foam pad. The slide was stories and stories high, its two yellow lanes yawning straight down like a forked tongue. And it was fast. Riders came screaming down those almost vertical lanes with huge, terrified smiles on their faces. Once in a while an unlucky, unbalanced passenger would fall off the foam pad. He or she would come laughing and dripping out the exit.

My family and I stood at the base of that slide, watching as ride attendants high above us helped people onto their pads and then nudged them toward the precipice. I had never been afraid of heights – In fact, I loved them. And I had to go on that ride.

I’m not sure why it was my dad who went with me, because my mom loves rides and heights as much as I do. But Dad, with his bad back and vertical phobia, accompanied me up six thousand stairs to the top of the ride. Was I sure, he asked? Did I really want to do this? Yes, yes, yes.

At the top an attendant handed me my foamy blue launch pad. I held it like a ticket to the moon, inching forward and watching the riders before me rocket down the chute.

And then it was my turn. It was all instructions from the attendant at that point: Mat here. Legs closed and straight out in front. Lean back. And HOLD ON. Once I was seated, she put her hand on my back and slid me toward the safety bar that would open momentarily, to release me onto the slide….

And that’s when it happened.

Suddenly my heart and stomach were lodged firmly in my throat. As the attendant – no turning back now – guided my little raft toward the long yellow tongue, I couldn’t see any of the slide stretching down before me. I saw blue, blue sky… treetops… other rides far below and, like ants down there on the pavement, my mom and sister watching as I was nudged toward my watery doom.

It was at that moment I let out my life’s first real, honest-to-goodness scream of terror.

Yes, I made it down the slide. I even made it in one piece, on my little blue raft, with my dad right behind me, grinning. And yes, the ride was fun – but what I remember most was being surprised at my terror. Because I couldn’t, at the top edge, see the path before me, I was afraid. It seemed I was about to fall off the edge of the world. What awaited me, really, was the thrill of a lifetime and a memory that stays with me so many years later.

I guess somehow love is like that. Everyone looks at the concept of love and knows it’s wonderful. We all need love, and we all know how to give love, whether we realize it or not. But sometimes when it comes right down to it, showing love to others scares us. We might get hurt, we think, or rejected. We might fall off of our little life rafts and get soaked. But how will we know if we don’t give it a shot?

God guides us in the right direction, toward those who need our love. If only we can learn to accept that, and keep our insecurities and fears at bay. What we don’t know – or what lies beyond one simple act of love – could be a thrilling adventure.

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