Water baby

prompt : the first time you went swimming

She's a water baby, I remember hearing my father say. She loves the water.

I think it must be true I muse, given that my first proper introduction to the lake consisted of my aunt throwing me off the end of the dock where she and her sister had been sunning and enjoying a few brewskies.

Their cackles echoed across the lake as I sputtered and flailed and could taste the moss that grew slimy on the rocks at the shoreline and around the edges of the dock.

Only moments before I had been standing in shallows of the beach, minding my business trying to find a crayfish that I had spied the day before.
Then suddenly I was hauled out and thrown off the end of the dock for my first swimming lesson.

"Sink or swim honey!" one of my aunts called out.

A few moments of panic and dread filled me, followed by a belly full of water and then swim I did.
Loving the lake even as it trickled down my throat and threatened to fill my lungs. Even as it came pouring out of my nose.

Cool, cold, fresh it didn't take me to it's murky depths. And when I stopped flailing it embraced me and lapped around my shoulders as I felt it pass through my fingers.

My father's hands strong and warm held me lightly for a while, and I watched the sun dapple brightly in ever changing streaks across the top of the water.  Gently he flipped me onto my back and I relaxed looking into a cloudless blue sky.  Slowly I felt his hands let go and I remained floating, bobbing in the gentle ebb of waves like a bright pink buoy.
I could stay like this forever.