Who remembers being a kid and listening in on your parents’ parties? It turns out there were some pearls of wisdom gleaned from those evenings spent eavesdropping on the adults as they gathered in the club room.  In the early 70s, the neighborhood parents got together frequently in our basement decorated with shag carpet, paneled walls, and a brick bar; which my father proudly built himself.  My brothers and I would huddle at the top of the steps, taking in all the neighborhood gossip.

It was during one of these step-sitting sessions that I heard about the niece of a local family who drowned while swimming in a drainage pond. The description of that tragedy has stayed with me for more than four decades.  It seems she latched onto the drainage pipe as she was sucked into it, they tried and tried to pry her fingers loose, the kids with her stomped on her fingers and yelled for her to let go.  If she had only let go of the pipe she would have flowed through to the other side and survived. 

All these years later, decades later, I am reminded of that phrase, let go of the pipe.  The wisdom of those words speaks to me today.  I cling to things and ideas and plans with such a ferocity that nothing can pry me loose.  The encouragement and the challenge of the people around me often fall on deaf ears as if I am underwater and scared to death.  If I would only loosen my grip and float through to the other side; what a new perspective.  I could stand in the water and climb onto a new plot of land with a new understanding having survived the fear of being sucked in and pulled to the other side.

That girl, whoever she was, taught me a life lesson that has stayed with me into my more than middle life.  Lesson learned, let go of the pipe.