Freedom from Fear

I didn’t learn to snorkel as a kid. I had one visit to Barbados when I was 22 and a friend of the family taught me the basics. I was amazed at how hushed the world became when I put my head underwater with the ability to breathe. Everything went away except my heartbeat, my breath and the beautiful world under the sea. I went another couple of times in Hawaii in my 40’s after my kids were old enough to go along. Again it was magical and special.

Then I got cancer. Out of left field my world changed. While I was going through the multiple surgeries and the treatments and the general lousiness of cancer I dreamed about two things: snorkeling and skiing. I imagined myself snorkeling while face down in the MRI tube. I told myself that skiing would happen again. That I would find myself on that mountain and I would fly down it with the wind in my face and I did. A year after the majority of my treatment was over I skied and it was fabulous. There were still many things to come that would challenge me feeling free and easy again but at that moment, in Colorado I didn’t know about them. I just felt the sun and the cold and the wind and strength in my body as I cruised down the mountain.

The following summer we planned a trip to Hawaii. It was a well deserved trip after a bout with a nasty case of pneumonia caused by valley fever. My best friend told me I had to go out on a boat belonging to a friend of hers and swim with the dolphins. There are many people who have issues with this, suffice it to say if the dolphins didn’t want to be where I was they would be gone.

We got up early and went out on the boat. Just the four of us, my husband, our two daughters and myself went with the Captain and his assistant. When we got close to a pod of dolphins I was first in the water. I panicked for a moment before I trusted my snorkel completely and with my heart pounding I convinced myself to let go. Then I just floated on top of the water and watched them dance beneath me. 40 or more dolphins were spinning and swimming and playing beneath me.

In that moment I was free. As I held my breath and dropped beneath the surface I felt all my fear vanish. The quiet surrounded me and all I could hear were the sounds of the dolphins, my breath and my heartbeat. All those fears of the last 2 years just melted away and I was one with the life underwater. The questions of would I live or die, would they have to remove something else, would my kids lose their mom early or would I get to be an old woman and grandmother, would my husband become a widower or would we have a 60, 80,100 year marriage– all of them floated away and I was just there feeling peace.

Where do I feel free now? Anywhere I am because of the rhythm of nature and the hearts of those dolphins. Anytime I start to get scared again I just think of them and how they are waiting for me to return for another swim in peace.

About the Author: Angelique L’Amour is a wife, mother, writer and cancer survivor. She loves to travel and gives her time to her family, her writing and to The Get In Touch Foundation

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