I used to believe family gatherings were supposed to bring people closer.
That Saturday taught me how wrong I could be.
The reunion was at a small farm outside town, where Josh's relatives had gathered for food, stories, and an afternoon by the pond.
There were folding tables beneath the trees.
Coolers sat in the grass.
Someone had brought a speaker, and country music played while people moved between the kitchen, the barbecue, and the dock.
Nothing seemed unusual.
At least, not at first.
My father, Leon, had come with me.
He was sixty-eight years old and still carried himself like a man who had spent most of his life doing physical work.
For thirty-eight years, he'd worked climbing utility poles for the electric cooperative.
He wasn't someone who complained about aches or asked people to carry things for him.
Even after retirement, he kept busy.
He fixed things around his house.
He mowed his own lawn.
He insisted on doing jobs that most people his age had already given up.
That afternoon, he wore a pale blue button-up shirt and dark trousers.
His hearing aids were in.
They were expensive, and he took care of them.
He had spent $4,100 on them three and a half years earlier.
I remembered how carefully he'd compared prices before buying them.
He had even delayed replacing an old refrigerator because he didn't want to spend too much money at once.
But his hearing had become bad enough that he finally admitted he needed help.
The hearing aids changed his daily life.
He could follow conversations again.
He could hear the television without turning it up until the neighbors complained.
He could understand people speaking from another room.
Most importantly, he could participate in family gatherings without constantly asking everyone to repeat themselves.
I knew how much that meant to him.
That's why what happened next stayed with me.
Cindy, my mother-in-law, had been moving around the dock with a paper plate in her hand.
She was sixty years old and enjoyed being the center of attention.
She liked teasing people.
Sometimes her jokes were harmless.
Other times, she pushed until somebody became uncomfortable, then acted surprised when they didn't laugh.
I'd seen that side of her before.
I usually let it go.
She was Josh's mother.
I didn't want every family gathering to become an argument.
Dad was standing near the edge of the dock when Cindy approached him.
I wasn't looking directly at them at first.
I was speaking to one of Josh's cousins a few feet away.
Then I heard a sudden splash.
A loud one.
The kind that makes every conversation stop.
I turned.
Dad was in the pond.
His blue shirt was soaked, and he was struggling to get his balance in the muddy water.
For a second, I couldn't understand what I was seeing.
Then I noticed Cindy standing on the dock.
She still had her plate.
And she was smiling.
I rushed toward the water.
Dad was trying to stand upright.
His hands moved toward his ears.
First one.
Then the other.
His expression changed.
He looked confused.
Then frightened.
His hearing aids were gone.
Both of them.
I dropped down beside the bank and reached for his arm.
"Come on, Dad. Give me your hand."
He couldn't hear me.
I had to gesture toward him and show him where to grab.
He finally caught my wrist.
I pulled while he used the muddy bank to push himself upward.
His clothes were heavy with water.
His shoes made a sucking sound as he climbed out.
Behind me, nobody seemed to know what to do.
Forty people had witnessed it.
Nobody was laughing anymore.
Cindy finally spoke.
"Leon, it was just messing around. Don't be so serious."
She said it as if the whole thing were a misunderstanding.
Dad stared at her.
He couldn't hear her.
I looked at him, then at the water.
"Why would you do that?"
My voice came out quieter than I expected.
Cindy shrugged.
"He should have taken those things out before coming near the pond."
I felt something rise inside me.
Not just anger.
Something deeper.
Dad had been standing peacefully on a dock at a family reunion.
He hadn't been swimming.
He hadn't been playing around.
He hadn't asked anyone to touch him.
And now his expensive hearing aids were somewhere beneath the muddy water.
I helped him sit on a nearby bench.
His hands were trembling.
I took a towel from one of the relatives and wrapped it around his shoulders.
He kept touching the sides of his head.
I wanted to tell him everything would be all right.
But I couldn't honestly promise that.
Josh wasn't there yet.
He had been helping his uncle prepare the brisket up the hill.
Someone finally called for him.
I watched him come running down the grass.
He looked at Dad.
Then at me.
Then toward the dock.
"What happened?"
I pointed toward the pond.
"Cindy pushed him."
Josh stopped walking.
His face changed.
He looked toward his mother.
She had already started explaining herself to another relative.
Apparently, it had been a joke.
Apparently, everyone was taking it too seriously.
Apparently, Dad should have known better.
I didn't want to hear another explanation.
I wanted those hearing aids back.
But the water had already swallowed them.
Click here to continue reading: PART 2: We Searched the Mud Until Sunset, but the One Thing My Father Needed Was Still Missing
The Afternoon Everyone Watched My Father Fall Into the Water, and Nobody Knew What to Say
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