‘We almost drowned.’

My life has been full of excitement lately, with the new book release, teenage stepdaughter, menopause… It is one helluva ride, and the only thing that gives my mind a bit of rest is writing a book and chatting with my mom on Messenger and listening to all the good stories about who died, who got divorced, and what the weather’s like in Poland.

Yup, these types of conversations, so imagine my surprise when my mom called me from Turkey (she is on a holiday trip there), and the first words I heard were.

‘We almost drowned.’

What in the living fuck?! I mean, things can happen. My mom loves to swim, and she was an excellent swimmer in the past, so I wondered what she’d done and how far she went from the shore for this to happen. I opened my mouth to ask if she was alright, but before I could speak, I found out what had happened when she continued with the rest of the story.

My mom didn’t get to the sea; No, that would be too simple and straightforward. I expected a story of how she didn’t know the shore, went swimming and had trouble with the tide. Nope, way too simple for my family.

My 70-year-old mother took my partially deaf stepfather to a fucking mahoosive waterside in the aqua park. Should I mention that she has severe back and neck problems and is not so agile after cancer treatment? No? Oh well. So my not-so-agile mom was tempted by the slide where younger people fear to thread and the tsunami pool. After a neck-breaking tumble, she ended up in 1-meter-deep water with artificial waves and was completely disoriented and struggling under the water’s surface.

One meter deep, you heard it right. If not for some young English chap who picked up my daring mother, she would have drowned in one-meter-deep water in the aqua park. I  mean, of all places in Turkey…

Anyway, once the English hero picked her up, they went to fish my stepdad out of the water.

And don’t even get me started on how my stepdad ended up butt-naked in the family hammam…