written by Big Brother Kyle

How we painted our backsides red...

This story begins a couple of months after I had been paired with my 8-year old little brother Zach. One day we decided to visit the local wavepool, and after discussing his level of swimming with his mom, we thought it best to get a life-jacket for him. After a few minutes in the waves, Zach noticed the diving tank and wanted to go check it out. The dive tank was quite deep and had a 1 metre diving board. Zach and I watched quite a few kids run and jump off of the diving board until Zach told me that he wanted to try. It turned out that life-jackets weren't allowed in the dive tank so I told Zach that if he still wanted to do it, I would wait in the water and swim out to get him as soon as he hit the water. Keep in mind that Zach and I had only known eachother for a few months, and all of a sudden he's having to trust me enough with his life if he wants to jump off this diving board (he could actually swim well enough that I wasn't too worried).

After several minutes of contemplation; looking at me, looking at the diving board, back at me, he decided he'd give it a shot. I got in the water, Zach got up on the diving board, and then the reassurance began. "It only looks like you're really high above the water", I said. He didn't buy that. "I'll be right here to grab you", still no motion. "I promise I won't let you go under the water for more than a millisecond".

I must have said something right because he took a deep breath, started walking, and just closed his eyes. Everything went smoothly, the plan worked out perfectly and all of a sudden we were on our 10th dive. During this time, Zach had witnessed a few teenagers doing front flips off the diving board and asked if I could do that. Not to be outdone by a couple of 14 year olds, I told him that I could. As I climbed up that diving board, I realized that I was probably as scared as Zach was on his first dive. I had never tried a flip before; in high school I was called the belly flop master in phys ed, and now I stood atop of what looked to be a 10 meter high diving board! I couldn't turn back then, not after what Zach had gone through, so I took my breath, started running down the board and just tried to tuck my head between my knees as quickly as I could.

The flip wasn't completely unsuccessful, it wasn't a 10 pointer, but I got out of the tank with minimal redness, and hey, Zach was impressed. So impressed in fact, he wanted to do it. Back up on the board he went, out came the reassurance again, and he did exactly as I did. Seeing this little 8-year old come running down the board and tuck his head into a roll made me realize just how funny I must have looked. After 5 more attempts (and considerable back-redness), we had the front flips pretty much down pat. We decided that would probably be enough that day.

From a shy little kid in a life jacket bobbing in the waves to Zach- professional front flipper in the period of one day was amazing to witness. We've since gone back to the wavepool with Zach's brothers as well, and they are always so amazed at how Zach can do front flips. The happiness I derived from that day far outweighed the pain I felt lying in bed that night. Looks like I’m going to have to learn back flips now.

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