By Kyle Roberts
When Judith and I wedded nearly two decades ago, the plan was, and still is, that we would have two children.
And when our darling Charlotte Penelope came to us just over eight years ago, she joined her older sister and completed our family of four. As a very proud “Girl Dad,” I tell people all the time that God always knows what he’s doing because He blessed with two amazing daughters (and it certainly helps that they have an even-more-amazing mother). They’re both sweet, smart and absolutely hilarious.
But I saw something on the lake this past week that truly took my breath away with my second child.
For context, we took a quick trip to Kentucky to visit some friends. We stayed in a beautiful lake house on Lake Barkley, near Paducah and about eight hours away from our home in Ruston. It was a relaxing few days of food, fun and site-seeing.
And naturally, if you’re on a lake, you have to rent a boat, right?
We hopped on a 24-foot pontoon in some of the nicest weather for mid-July I’ve ever seen and enjoyed an entire day of swimming, tubing and the spray of the lake when we were en route to a different cove.
After an hour of getting acclimated, we decided it was time for the kids to start tubing. As everyone was wearing life jackets, it was about as low risk of an activity that day we could have asked for. Not a lot of boats were out, somewhat surprisingly, so we thankfully enjoyed mostly open waters.
It was finally time for my girls to hop on the tube. I had zero hesitations, given my buddy’s ability to captain the boat. We had a system where the adults would communicate on what was going on behind the boat, so I had no anxiety.
After about 15 minutes, we took a turn and my girls both ended up on the outside of the wake. Still laughing behind us, we saw Alice’s legs take a flip, and she ended up off the tube — completely unharmed and from what we saw, still laughing.
Penny, on the other hand, did not see her sister. And even though we had given her a lecture before she got on the tube to not let go if she did not have to, she let go anyway.
Naturally, the adults were frustrated that we now had two water “rescues” instead of just one. Alice was easily treading water in her life jacket, with little sister trying to swim her way. Very easily and uneventfully, we pulled both girls onto the boat within three minutes.
As I was pulling Penny back up onto the boat, my frustration was still up and I reiterated how she was told not to let go of the tube.
“Why didn’t you listen, baby?” I remember asking.
“Because I couldn’t see Alice,” Penny said. “And I thought she was going to die.”
And in that brief moment, my frustration gave way to total admiration: Penny gave up her spot on the tube, in an unfamiliar place on the water, and sacrificed her own safety to save her sister.
Once she saw Alice on the boat, Penny crumbled and sobbed uncontrollably. What was a normal part of tubing was literal life and death for her, and the sight of her sister completely safe was a tidal wave of emotion.
Penny then ran to me, and after a few minutes being in the loving arms of her daddy, she shook off her fears once she realized everybody was okay.
And guess what? She was tubing again 10 minutes later.
Part of the beauty of being a parent is seeing things in your children as they develop and grow. Judith and I have always known that Penny has a very protective piece in her soul for others, whether its her family, friends or the kid who isn’t playing with anyone else on the playground. But seeing that in realtime in a complete non-crisis? It was humbling.
Everyday, Judith and I pray that we’re doing this thing right by how we’re raising these kids. We are always processing what we can do to be better and bring into the world productive citizens and hopefully, good people into the next generation.
For now, I’ll celebrate that something has to be going right for an eight-year-old to stare into the face of death in her mind and go save a sister who was in literally zero danger.
And I can’t wait to see what other amazing things there are about her that I’ll get to learn, too.
