Our second meet is tonight. So far I just know that Ed is swimming the individual medley. He is at the upper end of the age group this year, so he is one of the stronger swimmers. (Although his freestyle looks a little off for some reason. He looks like a caveman swimming. No offense to cavemen.)
I am scoring the meet. When I score a meet, I think of my friend Linda who died the day Amy was born. (And then Amy almost died on her birthday 16 months later.) Linda used to do the ribbons for the meets. The scorer sits next to the ribbons person as we share data. Linda died of ovarian cancer. She fought it for a long time. The last summer she was alive, I was pregnant with Amy. She and I were not allowed to work swim meets that summer because she was not healthy, and I was not having a healthy pregnancy. So she and I were both dropped off at the pool gate and we sat in the shade. People brought us water and food. And we sat and talked. And talked. Her son was our coach, and he was 18 when she died. I got a lot of great mom advice from her that last summer. She knew Alex well because she was the aid in his kindergarten class.
So tonight I will be missing Linda.
