READER’S DIGEST
July• 2019 | 129bumped into a wave the water came
over the sides. At first it was nice to
feel the spray after being in the hot
sun all day. But as the waves pitched
us up and down, some of my cousins
started retching. Others were crying
and screaming, “Oh, God!”
We seemed very low in the wa-
ter. My cousins used their shoes to
scoop water out of the dinghy. I heard
someone say, “We should never have
brought the wheelchair.”
I knew I should have been wor-
ried. My wheelchair could have torn
the fabric of the boat, or a large wave
could have turned the boat over. I’d
never been in the water and of course
can’t swim. And yet, sitting high in
my wheelchair, I thought of myself
like Poseidon, god of the sea, in his
chariot.
“Look how beautiful it is,” I cried
as we were tossed up and down. I
laughed every time we were hit by
another wave, even though we were
drenched through.
“You need a psychiatrist,” some-
one said.
Actually, I was praying, too, but
qu iet l y.
We were so intent on our own boat
that we didn’t see what happened to
the other three leaving with us. We lat-
er found out that the first boat quickly
overturned, leaving the people on the
Turkish shore. Another boat got most
of the way and overturned close to
Lesbos. These people swam to shore.
The fourth boat was picked up by the
Turkish coast guard and brought back
to Izmir.
Uncle Ahmed’s YouTube lessons
had proved useful. We went against
the waves instead of with them, and
he got us to sit more on the side
where the waves were hitting the boat
to keep it down. After a while a mist
came down and we could no longer
see Lesbos ahead. I hoped we were
going the right way. People kept look-
ing at my wheelchair. We had agreed
that if it became a danger we would
throw it out to sea.
We had been at sea for three and a
half hours. The sun was setting, and
we were starting to shiver, when sud-
denly the island rose up ahead of us.
Soon we could make out people wait-
ing on shore.
The dinghy bumped onto the
rocky shore, and friendly faces and
outstretched hands awaited us with
towels, bottles of water and biscuits.
“Does anybody speak English?” some-
one shouted.
“I do,” I called out.
Everyone looked at me. And that
was a turning point. I became the
translator for the group, and for the
first time in my life everyone needed
me. All because ofDays of Our Lives!
Some of my relatives were too over-
whelmed to get out of the boat on
their own and volunteers walked into
the sea and helped us. They were sur-
prised to see my wheelchair and lifted
it out onto the shore.
A journalist was there with a TV