T
he first time I fell in love with water was the first
time I almost drowned. I was 2 years old and
running around my second home: The Valley Swim
Club. My dad noticed I wasn’t eating lunch at the picnic
table, so he went looking for me by the pool. There I was:
submerged like a rock at the bottom of the shallow end.
My dad, the hero in this story, claims that he yanked me
out of the water by my arm as I coughed hard to get the
water out of my throat. The funny thing is, I would be
taking swim lessons in that same shallow end three years
later.
After swim lessons I was immediately signed up
for competitive swimming at the age of 6. It was the
Delaware Valley Summer Swim League, and my team,
the Valley Sharks, was the smallest and worst team in
the conference. I remember wanting to swim butterfly,
the most awkward and physically challenging stroke in
the sport of swimming (bless my ambitious, six-year-old
soul). Circling my arms as fast as I could, I felt so powerful
going through the water as I swam that one, 25-meter lap.
Little did I know, I would continue swimming for the
next 13 years.
As strange as it sounds, swimming comes more
naturally to me than walking. I never feel out of place
in the water — my body immediately adapts with each
stroke. I had only swum in the summers, but when I got
to high school, my senior sister convinced freshman me
to join the swim team instead of the basketball team. I
had loved swimming, but I knew it would be tough: two
(and sometimes three) practices a day, late nights and
super early mornings, Saturday practices, and in general,
extremely difficult workouts. But for some reason,
something was calling out to me to do this … to continue
swimming. So, I reluctantly obliged.
Soon enough, I was racing my sister in the 100 Butterfly,
something I had never done before due to our separate age
groups. It was always Lauren first, Erika second, and that
only made me want to do better every race (Shevcheks live
off of competition). The pool was the second home for my
sister and me: We both grew up swimmers and became
lifeguards, we both chose swimming over any other sport,
and we both felt that we were most dominant in water.
But in June of 2013, the pool changed for us completely.
A dive into a black-bottom pool made Lauren paralyzed
from the nose down. The one person who knew water
better than I did was now struggling to move, let alone
swim. I asked her what it felt like to be in that pool, losing
all the feeling and function in her body. She told me, “With
every kick back to the surface, I lost more sensation. Then
my legs just stopped working. I felt like a mermaid.”
It’s been a tough journey of recovery for Lauren since
then. But, despite the catastrophic accident, my sister
is still the same person she was before. The doctors had
told her that even though the impact of the dive was so
crucial, the water pressure saved her brain. The water
saved my sister.
I have not looked at a pool the same way since. There
will always be a scar of pain when I see the water and
when I dive in for my own races. Yet, Lauren’s brain
wasn’t the only one that was saved by water.
My senior year of high school I was diagnosed with
severe anxiety. There were days when I genuinely could
not handle the world, including myself and my own
thoughts. However, I had a volleyball and swim team to
lead, colleges to apply to, records to break. I concealed
my anxiety with a façade of smiles and confidence.
Truthfully, the one thing that got me through that period
of time was the power of the pool.
That season I had set enormous goals for myself. With
two torn rotator cuffs and a mental illness, I planned to
break school records, go to districts (for 50 freestyle and
the 200 free relay) and overall, have my team win as many
league meets as possible. I channeled all of my energy,
my stress and my deteriorating thoughts into the sport.
And somehow, my anxiety turned into accomplishment. I
stood at the top of the podium with my relay, holding our
gold medals and knowing that our names and the record-
breaking time would be up on the board.
As any swimmer knows, the physical act of swimming
is meditative. You can’t hear anything but the rippling
motion of the water and your own thoughts. You somehow
think of everything and nothing — it’s being mindful and
mindless at the same time. It’s pure magic.
The water gets sucked into my skin; it runs down my
hair, through my teeth. I can feel my heart thriving as if
the water has entered my bloodstream. When I couldn’t
tell others about my issues, the pool was all ears. When
I had to cry, the goggles caught my tears. Personally, I
believe water to be the most damaging and powerful
force, but here I am also feeling so safe and content when
I am in it.
Those who are close to me will know that when I am
sad, I swim. When I am angry, I swim. When I make
a huge mistake, I swim. When I need to dissect my
thoughts, I swim. When I need to leave the world for a
while, I swim. My body doesn’t have to think about the
motions — it acts on its own. It knows when to flip, when
to breathe, when to change from fly kick to flutter kick,
when to break out of streamline and all the in between.
Even though I almost died in the water when I was two,
having the outlet of swimming and having my body react
the way it does when it is in the pool has been my biggest
blessing.
Though water is my safe haven, there still remains
that slight touch of fear. However, even my sister’s injury
did not stop her. By summer of 2015, she was back in the
pool with my mom, trying to do strokes and float on her
back (a form of hydrotherapy/rehabilitation). I slipped
into the water next to Lauren, who sat in this cute, adult
floaty. I looked at her, I looked at the water: “You know,
we haven’t been in a pool together in four years,” I told
her. The water still had its binds, and regardless of our
rough journeys, it had brought my sister and I back home.
Wednesday, November 16, 2016 // The Statement
6B
Water: My Sister’s Savior, My Best Friend
by Erika Shevchek, Daily Arts Writer
ILLUSTRATION BY ELISE HAADSMA