When I came to, I quickly realized that I was drowning. The downstream was so ruthlessly rapid that it threw me repeatedly to the bottom of a riverbed and knocked me into rocks. I bounced up and only caught a glimpse of my wife who was also tossed up and down and around in the ferocious river. My granddaughter and her parents were bending over the edge of a river raft, anxiously searching for someone else in the angry stream.

“What’s happening?” I struggled to figure out.

Then I heard something. A baby was crying. Oh, no! It was our grandson whose lifejacket was caught on a pointy rock. His shrieking was earsplitting even in the thunderous river.

“I’ve got to save the baby!” my brain screamed.

Up I stood. Ouch. I collapsed. Something important must have been broken. I was helplessly useless though I did not give in to the plunging water which was like dozens of hands grabbing me all over the places – my feet, legs, shoulders, neck and even the seemingly broken hip – and wrestling my entire two-hundred-pound stout body back down into the river, choking me. I refused to surrender. While considered a senior by the public standard, I was tall and well-built – masculine from all angles if not showing the revealing face – thanks to 24 Hour Fitness’ heavy lifts. I yelled at myself, “You can do it. The water is only waist-to-chest deep. Come on!” For the baby and for my wife, there I rose. I struggled to get to the boy despite being miserable after kicking a cobble with my bare toe, but the torrent took advantage of my weakened base, flipping me like a coin on its palm and casting me into a rock which, I swear to God, I did not intend to bump heads with. Yet bump I did; it was a bloody header. Once again, I blacked out as both my body and mind drifted away.

… 

It was late June of 2020, when Golden California had warmed up with its smiling sun in the blue sky inviting people to step out of their three lingering months of quarantine due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Businesses briefly opened up for a couple of weeks, though still requiring social distancing, and people unleashed themselves from the constrain of their sanctuaries in which they had been confined to live and work around the clock. Beaches, parks, and walking trails became more appealing than ever before. My family wanted to get to the outdoors too. We yearned to inhale the unadulterated air that would revive our lungs, we longed to shower in the soothing breeze that would comb through our hair and massage our skin, we craved to mingle with green mountains or blue water under white clouds that would replenish us with energy, and we desired to embrace mother nature that would touch our hearts and heal our isolated souls. 

It was a weekend outing for a family of three generations to celebrate my granddaughter’s sixth birthday. Joining birds’ choral, we came out to Lake Tahoe, where we could have some form of human interaction for our interdependent selves to be with and for one another.

Happy birthday, happy birthday
Happy birthday to you … 

The song filled the air in our SUV on our way into the town where we saw swimmers boasting their tanned beauty on the beaches, kayakers muscling their watercrafts towards the lake, convertibles swaying on crowded streets although all folks stayed six feet away from one another and only took their face masks off when dining.

Suddenly, two cyclists collided and started disputing. Both quickly put on their face coverings and pulled apart instead of yelling and spitting onto each other’s faces.

“See I’m still protecting you by keeping a social distance even after you rear ended me,” one exclaimed.

 “Who’d wanna kiss your behind. Why did ya slam on the breaks, man?” defended the other.

 “Yeah, stay away to be safe!” He dusted himself off and rode on.

Some people, however, did not separate and inevitably experienced retribution for their reckless conduct. To be exact, kissing was literally what a couple of teens were doing. They did not seem to worry about the virus perhaps because they were so young that they even wore dental braces – those that would fascinate these youngsters by getting a different color during each visit to the orthodontist. Right on the sidewalk, a boy and girl were indulging in their muah’in and smack’in. Suddenly, they saw the girl’s mother, and – OMG – their braces tangled up. The infuriated parent hollered, “What kind of social distancing is this?” The teens simply could not break apart from each other’s lips. Trapped together, the kissers were steered into the adult’s vehicle and left. What a consequence for violating social distancing! 

To avoid potential contact with the Corona virus, we rented a lakeside treasure house through Airbnb. Most essential activities were indoors. Toy cars were rolling on the living room floor, ping pong balls were bouncing in and out of beer pong cups, beef sirloin was sizzling on the barbeque grills, and the most exhilarating activity plan emerged during our line dance: we were going to row down the Truckee River. Yes, river rafting.

It was supposed to be a few hours of peace and quiet floating for about five miles where close contact with other people would not be possible, and no face coverings of any kind would be required or even necessary. Hand in hand, we came to the dock for the last boat of the day. Impatiently and standing away, we listened to the starter guide’s muffled words of safety instruction through his N-95: “This will mostly be an easy ride, a somewhat level-one experience, except in one area of up-to-chest whitewater bumpy maneuvering. Don’t panic. Sit on both sides of the raft to keep it balanced, OK? You’ll probably survive if falling into violent rapids as long as you don’t crush onto rocks. Wave your orange paddles or call us for SOS just in case. Now, take off your masks and get on board. Have fun, you guys!”

“How tedious,” I mumbled to myself as I felt it would be such a piece of cake since we had done level-four white-water rafting and considered ourselves swimmers. We swiftly put life jackets onto the two little ones, a five and a six-year old. Having kicked the vests for adults to the corner of the boat, we paddled off.

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream … 

The ride was as smooth as expected. The river was calm and breeze gentle. Even the sun was grinning when the grandkids’ laughter rebounded in the valley. It was chilly when we first took off the shoes and dipped our ducky feet into the ice-cold water flowing down from the snow mountaintops. But we splashed on and twirled around, not having to worry about being in other boats’ way. Cheers and poses mixed with camera clicks. We were so carried away that we did not notice we rushed into rapids and waves while the raft was lopsidedly occupied. Before I knew it, I was thrown in the air when we bumped on a rock, and I smashed onto something hard that knocked me out. 

…

I surfaced again, gasping for air, when I heard my grandson crying. Down the stream, my wife was banging into rocks, and my granddaughter and her parents were paddling to where the cry was from. Off the raft my son jumped, and he grabbed the baby’s lifejacket. Then he carried his five-year-old on his shoulder to the river bank which happened to be within two steps from them while the raft continued to flow down the river, out of sight. But my wife and I were not that lucky as we kept rolling downward and missed the narrow section of the river, where it was easier to access land.

“I can’t crash onto a rock again! It’ll be deadly,” I told myself.

But I just could not stand or swim. The cobbles on the riverbed were so slippery that when I stepped on one, it would just glide my bare feet to another in a random direction while striking hard on the toes or heals or insteps. Both ankles were sprained. Each hit sent a shock through my body, and every time it tussled me back down to the current to clash on a rock with another part of my body – the back, the neck, everywhere. My gym-trained muscles lost their power and were pathetically helpless ornaments. The bones, though, were put on a real test on the river that was like a trampoline, springing my skeleton up and down. In the midst of the splashing, I saw my wife getting caught in between two rocks projecting out of the river. Unfortunately, she was thumped one more time; fortunately, she was able to use them to stop in the middle of the river.

“Give me your hand,” she yelled out.

I missed her hand but snatched one of her feet. After a strenuous tug-a-war against the torrent, we claimed victory. We both sat on the rocks.

“What should we do?” my wife probed since it was clear that we should not attempt to walk across any more.

“We are safe for now as long as we hold on to these rocks,” I observed. We nodded to each other, knowing our son and his wife would be waving their orange paddles and phoning for help.

We stayed put. Along the river, cars sped by in the distance, and there were occasional joggers on the paralleling trail. We saw no help coming our way, except a sign that stood by us obtrusively exhibiting its warning: “Be smart and stay six feet apart!”

The river was no longer blue; water turned into black, ready to whirl us in, and those sharp-toothed rocks were there to rip our flesh and hammer our bones. Freezing water and chilly wind slashed our skin like a thousand paper cuts slicing all over our cold and stiffened bodies. The river roared and rattled its riverbed. The sun hid behind clouds and left us in loneliness, and the sky was getting gloomier. We hung on to each other, shivering through every torturous minute and awaiting rescue. We wondered whether we would be airlifted by pilots or carried ashore by firefighters in uniforms and behind facial shields.

Just then, two bicyclists appeared on the trail – two young athletic ladies not in uniforms but in sporty jerseys and spandexes. They saw us. They seemed to have said something to each other and nodded before parking their bikes against the stay-apart sign and dashed toward us. Both looked for a shallower spot to get into the river.

“Don’t come in,” I shouted, “You may get yourselves killed! The stones are brutal for your feet.”

“No worries. We have our shoes on,” one of them assured us.

Oh, shoes. How I longed to have mine on! They would wrap my feet so that I could stand and walk without getting hurt. I could have brought my wife ashore already. Yet we had to rely on others that had theirs on. No, wait. The two girls did not wear masks. Would they be concerned about possibly getting infected? As my mind was bubbling with such thoughts, the slightly shorter one plunged into the river and waded toward the center. Water pushed her, the slippery cobblestones staggered her; however, her shoes did help. One dogged step at a time, she came to us. Offering her hands to my wife, she called out: “Walk with me. I’m Kate.”

The two ladies of the same height held onto each other and wobbled to the riverbank. A few times, my wife slipped; Kate pulled her back up. Then my wife fell down so hard that she even dragged Kate into the water. They rolled on top of each other till they bobbed up like corks in the water. They slowly got closer to the bank when the other girl broke off a huge dry tree branch and extended to my wife, who gripped it and was pulled up to safety.

Kate cheered, “Good job, Anna!” before she turned around and came back to me. 

Getting someone who almost doubled her weight ashore was tougher than Kate had expected. No sooner did my feet kick the riverbed stone, I fell. My injured hip yielded to my heaviness. Kate, on the other hand, did not give up on me. She did not let go of me in spite of the fact that she got pulled down; her body, her head, and her lovely long hair were all in the water. Kate, a former lifeguard, wouldn’t accept falling as a way out and demonstrated her stunning lifesaving skills. She managed to stay on her feet and assisted me to get back up too. We learned that as long as we did not rush and made sure that I, the heavier one, was not to stumble, we would be less likely to fall on all fours again. She supported me to make every single step as steady as I could.

We were successful for a while till Kate tripped this time. She fell abruptly but was able to catch my left hand and wavered with me as ballast. My weight, though, helped for once. I squatted to resist the downstream with my back and shoulders and seized her leg with the right hand and pulled her to me. Kate locked her arms around my neck when we noticed that my right arm was in between her legs. What an awkward spot! We quickly exchanged a sorry-but-ok eye contact before I promptly wrapped both my arms around her waist. Her superior balancing capability aided by her willpower was effective again as we were like statues towering in the middle of the raging river. One more time, we were into each other’s arms, panting and breathing each other’s breaths. There was no social distancing; forget about facial covering, for this was how lives were saved or protected. Together we treaded water, together we stepped near the bank, together we relayed with the tree branch baton from Anna, and together we finally landed on solid ground.

Soaking wet, Kate, Anna, my wife and I hugged. We cuddled for a long, long time till my son arrived with the same starter guide in a truck loaded with ropes and floaters to rescue us. “Thank you!” were the only words we uttered to our beautiful angels and our giant heroines, Kate and Anna. Yet the surging river ran with our emotion, the deep valley echoed our feelings, and we were forever attached to one another.

“Here are masks to safeguard us. Put them on and get into the truck. I will send you back to the dock where you started to meet with the rest of your family,” inserted the longwinded guide. 

Stepping into the truck and returning to the reality, I felt hope, for people cared about others under all circumstances as I had just witnessed and experienced. In town or out in the open, everyone was in it for everyone else. They were smart to protect one another whether or not staying six feet apart. Through the truck’s windshield, we watched Kate and Anna mount their bicycles, pull away from the stay-apart sign, and ride towards the setting sun that came back out from behind the clouds. Gradually they blended into the horizon along Truckee river that brought our hearts together, even in the socially distanced world, ever after.

Charles Lee publishes. He is an author of poetry, personal essays, short fiction, and various translations. He teaches. He is a Professor of English/ESL at De Anza College in California. He translates. He is a consecutive and simultaneous interpreter in English/Chinese. He competes. He was a basketball player, a volleyball athlete, a track and field competitor, and now a joyful golfer. Most importantly, he loves. He is a family man. He and his wife, Helena, have been living in the San Francisco Bay Area since about thirty-five years ago. They are proud parents of two elites, Steven and Tammy, and grandparents of two loving grandchildren, Aria and Jake.