She Almost Drowned

August of 2014 I went tubing down the Salt River in Arizona. For those who don't know, Salt River tubing is one of those things that locals do to keep cool during those extremely hot days under the Phoenix sun. I was introduced to it by my husband and his family who have gone dutifully year after year. Now living in San Diego, we went to Arizona to visit family and took the opportunity to enjoy a little bit of tubing.

This time around my husband and I were joined by his niece and her boyfriend. It was a typical day at the river with a mixture of both locals, tourist and college students. Thanks to some good rains over the winter, the water level was high.

Halfway through the trip down the river we hit one of many rapids that are found throughout the ride. Usually you hold tight to your tube and enjoy the rough ride. The most injury you would get is a few bruises on your butt from hitting the tops of the submerged rocks.

But this time was different. When I hit the first part of the rapids, my tube hit a rock too hard and flipped over. Before I realized what happened I found myself being pushed under the water by the rapids. Every time I tried to come up for air the waves would slam me back down again. My back was slammed into the side of a large rock. I started digging my hands and feet into the ground in an attempt to brace myself. Eventually I grappled my way onto another large rock. When I could see clearly, I realized that I was alone in the middle of the rapids. 

I was cold, my body felt numb and I was shaking all over. People- groups and individuals- passed me by. I had a hard time finding my voice. I was able to mumble the words 'help me', as people passed by. But either people were too far away to reach me or the rapids made it impossible for them to grab a hold of me. I was stuck in the river with no way of getting out. It felt like forever before a large group of college students came by. They were floating along on a giant tube. Two of the girls saw me and both reached out to grab me. The rapids and my weak state made it impossible for them to pull me onto the tube, so I hung on the side of their tube, my legs dragging across the bottom of the river.

When we got to a safe stopping point, they started pulling me to the shore line. My husband's niece saw me and frantically jumped into the water to help. They got me up onto the sand. I remember someone giving me a bottle of water. My husband came running from down the river. I found out that he had ran down the shore line to where my tube had flipped over, hoping to find me.

I put on a brave face and made light of what had just happened. I joked about it and even encouraged us to continue down the river. We did, until my husband flipped out of his own tube over another set of rapids. We then decided that was enough excitement for one day and went home.

I continued with my brave face, even proclaiming that such an event would not put me off from tubing again. As I was still numb all over, I asked my husband to help me into the shower. Standing their watching the sand wash away from my body, I looked down to see the extent of the damage. My legs were covered in cuts and scraps. The tips of my fingers were bruised and cut open from when I dug into the river bed and from clinging onto the rock. There were bruises on my chest and as the numbness started to wear off I could feel the ones on my back.

My knees suddenly gave out and my husband caught me before I fell.  I started crying uncontrollably. He wrapped his arms around me. I could hear him getting choked up as he spoke. "I thought I lost you. You were so brave. You were so brave."

It would take about two weeks, half a tube of Neosporin and several prescription pain pills for me to physically recover from my near-drowning. I have still yet to mentally recover from it. Making this quilt has been part of my healing process. It has been painful re-living that event, but somehow transforming it into a quilt has helped to solidify it for me. Like a marker on a road, showing that I was there, that this actually happened to me. 

A little bit about the quilt itself: It was made using scrap fabrics. Several of the scraps were old Moda fabrics. The quilt is an improvisational log cabin design. It is tied down in reverse, meaning that the  ties are in the back of the quilt. I did it this way with the ties representing the hidden rocks within the river. I rough stitched patches onto the quilt that spell out the words, 'help me'. There are two swirls on this quilt. One is drawn on while the other is hand stitched. Both can be barely seen on the front of the quilt and only one can be seen from the back. They are the twisting rapids - the ones on the surface and the ones underneath. Somewhere on the quilt I wrote the words that I prayed to God as I was being pushed under the water.  I will leave those words unspoken.

This quilt is simply titled, "She Almost Drowned".