BRAINLES and NEAR LIFELESS

Yeah, yeah, Mijas—you've probably heard this one before. Maybe twice. Maybe twenty times. I don't blame you if you rolled your eyes the last time I brought it up. But let me say this: if things had gone even a hair differently, you'd never have heard this story once because I'd have been dead. Heck, Mijas, you might not even exist.

So, here it is—this time in writing. No interruptions. No eye rolls. Just one stupid, stubborn eleven-year-old, one monster flood, and one lucky rope.

I'd scrutinized the Mexican tennis players across the Río Grande river for weeks. Not for the game—I couldn't care less about tennis. The balls caught my eye. Oh, those blinding, bouncing white tennis balls. They looked like baseballs to me. And I wanted one. Needed one! You know how I love baseball.

I could see them clearly from our side of the Río Grande in America. The courts were settled at the very top of the river, about 90 or maybe even 100 feet above the usual water level, nestled between two bends—the upriver one curling right, the downriver one turned left—trees, tall grass, chirping birds—a beautiful spot for the birth of a dumb idea—think Adam and Eve.

So, I picked a day—the day. I planned to swim across the river and snag myself a tennis ball. Never mind that I was eleven and built more for climbing trees than making life-or-death decisions.

The problem was that the river had other plans.

Unbeknownst to me, it had rained hard to the north and west. The kind of rain that makes rivers angry. My dad told me that little detail after he fished me out.

I should've turned back the second I saw the thunderheads rolling in and the lightning cracking the sky. But nope. I was focused. Obsessed. And you would not be at fault for thinking me dumb.

I dove in and swam across. Even though the river was about 120 yards wide, it was easy because I was a strong swimmer. The water wasn't scary—yet. I sneaked up the steep slope full of brush, soaked to the bone, just in time to see the tennis players speeding off in their shiny cars. Not one measly ball was left behind.

Then came the sound. Not thunder. Not wind. It was deeper and heavier, like a freight train had broken loose and chosen to chase me.

I turned and saw a wall of water, brown and boiling, ripping around the upriver bend like it had a grudge against the world. The flood had arrived—and it wasn't coming quietly. It brought everything with it. Chickens, outhouses, dead animals, logs, planks, branches—if it could float, it was in that water. Some things that couldn't float were in there, too.

I was trapped. On the wrong side. Staring death in the face, soaked, cold, and empty-handed—no tennis ball.

Then, across the surging river, I saw them—Mom and Dad, just barely, through the curtain of rain. My mom dropped like a rag doll when she saw me—she fainted. Dad was waving his arms like a man possessed, yelling something I couldn't hear over the roar of the flood.

I waited, not out of courage, but out of fear. If I dove in right then, I'd be nothing but driftwood. Gulf of Mexico, here I come!

Finally, after the initial wave thundered past, the water looked calmer—well, calmer in the same way a lion looks calmer after it eats the first guy. I knew it was now or never.

So I jumped into a much different river than the one I crossed from north to south just minutes earlier.

I swam like my life depended on it—because it did. I dodged lumber, branches, and a floating chicken coop. Every stroke was a significant struggle. The current pulled me downriver, closer to the bend, closer to gone forever. Again, the Gulf of Mexico was beckoning me.

And then, out of the grey blur of rain and panic, came a rope—a gift from the heavens. My dad had grabbed the long rope we used for the milking cow I should have been tending.

He threw it, and somehow—somehow—I caught it.

He pulled. I clung. Water slapped my face and stole my breath. But little by little, yard by yard, he reeled me back to the muddy, blessed American side of the river.

No tennis ball! Just a memory burned into my brain—and probably a few more grey hairs on my dad's head.

That day, I learned two things:

1.    Floods don't care if you're eleven.

2.    Luck sometimes shows up as a soggy rope.

So, yeah, Mijas - maybe you've heard of it before. Maybe you're tired of it. But I'll never get tired of telling it—because I cheated death by the skin of my teeth.