Margaret O'Donnell 2011©Eduardo hated the water, even as a child in Guatemala. He would wade in the sea on family trips to the Pacific beach, but never immerse himself fully as the rest of his family did. He never learned to swim. When he was twelve, his father left the family, and his mother couldn’t afford the trips to the beach anymore. When he left the country for the US in 1988, he was 21 years of age. Riding on a bus that passed through Mexico, he was already discouraged to the point of thinking of turning back. Then the coyote, or “smuggler,” brought his group of mostly Mexicans, to the Rio Grande. “Swim,” the coyote said, “We will all swim. The river is slow and not very deep here.”
“No boat, no raft?” Eduardo asked.
His answer was a snort. “Cowards are never going to make it.”
Eduardo was the last of the group of twelve to enter the water. He waded a long way out, almost three-fourths of the way to the other side. The water was no more than thigh-high and the current was sluggish, but the water slowly rose to his waist, then to the middle of his chest. He grabbed a big branch floating by and hugged it; he tried to keep walking but couldn’t. His feet left the river bed, and then his head went under. He came up, and tried to hurl himself on top of the branch, but it slipped out of his hands. He went under. He clawed at the water and came up again. He tried to shout but his mouth was full of water. He went under again, thrashing desperately he tried to make it back up, but couldn’t.
Then, something around his chest pulled him up and his head was out. Someone was towing him to shore with an arm across his chest, swimming alongside of him. When they reached the shallows, the man dragged him up to the sand and said, “Breathe, man. Breathe.” Eduardo breathed. The man crouching beside him, middle-aged, stocky, and pock-marked, smiled. He was not part of their group. “You’ll make it,” he said. Eduardo closed his eyes. He heard the coyote calling to the others so he got to his feet and staggered up the river bank. He looked around him for the man, but he was gone.
For years Eduardo kept looking for the man who saved his life. He looked for him in every face, but has yet to find him. Now, he is a US citizen and he lives his life in gratitude. He has decided to behave as if everyone he meets could be that man and as a result of this, he is known for his great generosity.
