What the Sphinx Knew

The stone sphinx had guarded our backyard pool for forty-seven years, its paint-chipped wings spread over the diving board like a protective embrace. Dad brought it home from that hardware store going-out-of-business sale in 1978, declaring it gave our above-ground pool 'an air of ancient wisdom.' We'd rolled our eyes then.

Now, watching my granddaughter Maggie trace the worn hieroglyphs someone had scratched across the sphinx's base, I understood what he meant. 'Grandpa,' she asked, 'did Grandpa really teach you to swim in this pool?'

'He did,' I said. 'Though his method was unconventional. He'd toss me in, shouting "Sink or swim like the pharaohs!"'

Maggie giggled.

'Your great-grandfather,' I continued, running my hand along the pool's weathered edge, 'believed everything worthwhile came from facing what scared you. He kept the sphinx here because he said its riddle was simple: what makes us stronger also makes us remember why we need strength.'

That summer lightning storm - the one that struck the oak tree and blinded our power for three days - Dad sat beside this very pool, flashlight aimed at the sphinx's patient stone face. 'You know,' he said, 'someday you'll understand that the things that outlast us aren't things at all.'

He died two months later. But every summer, as my own children learned to swim here, and now theirs, that sphinx kept watch over splashing laughter and sunburned shoulders, over cannonball contests and first kisses.

Maggie pressed her palm against the warm stone. 'I think it knows things.'

'So do I,' I smiled. 'So do I.'