T. S. Eliot, “East Coker” I tried reasoning, pleading desperately for them to relent. I felt the tears spring forth, though I refused to shed them in front of her. Why couldn’t I make them understand? Why couldn’t they comprehend my terror? “Emily, I’m afraid to tell you, if you don’t pass your swim test, you can’t graduate,” Mrs. Anderson, the guidance counselor, said. She looked compassionately into my eyes and slowly nodded her gray head in my direction to emphasize her point. I groaned inwardly. I’d tried everything to get out of it, but there was no hope that I could see. I’d have to learn to swim. It was a well-known rule that everyone had to pass to graduate. Fifteen years ago, someone left a sizeable amount of money to the school after a beloved son, a senior about to graduate, had died in a boating accident. The one stipulation made was that every student must learn to swim. I’d made the effort to several times, but I had an unnatural fear of drowning since I was a small child.
