"Lifeguard" by Susan W. Harris

 – I hesitated. I had never done a real rescue.

Benny hated rejection and held a grudge.

Susan W. Harris lives in Hilton Head, South Carolina, where she is a member of the Island Writers Network, (IWN). Her mother, a writer, encouraged her to write. Professionally she wrote grants and proposals for nonprofits. Poems and stories were published in the IWN anthology’s recent two books. Currently, she is writing a novel inspired by the life of her grandmother and mother.

Author’s Talk

I think this experience of being a lifeguard and actually saving someone helped me grow up. At seventeen, life was full of teenage traumas and upheavals. Faced with a potential life-changing decision, I reacted and robot-like did what I was trained to do. 

This proved to me the value of being prepared. 

I respect how first responders go about their life changing work, in spite of their own personal danger. Their hours … weeks … years of training automatically allow them to make the arduous decisions required and trigger their preparations to save lives.  

In a small way, I have been able to apply this to my life. I was married to a wonderful man for nearly fifty years before he died of dementia. While one cannot be prepared for the torturous road this disease takes, I researched and studied about it. I feel this helped me to give him the love he deserved as we traveled together toward his end.—Susan W. Harris