06/25/2025
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Please don’t use puddle jumpers, floaties, noodles, etc. that kids have to rely on to get air when they are in the water.
I usually don’t post water safety content on my personal pages. Not because I don’t care, caring is my full-time reality now but because it hurts. And because the cruelty of strangers can slice through you like glass when you’re already trying to hold together the shattered pieces of a life you didn’t choose.
But I made an exception recently. I posted a video about my son, Bodhi. About his drowning. About the moment everything in my life changed. I shared it near the anniversary of his accident —June 11th 2022, a date seared into my skin, my chest, my bones. I shared it because I will never stop trying to prevent the thing that killed my soul from happening to anyone else.
And then it went viral.
At first, I was grateful. More people seeing his face, hearing his story. More children who might be saved. But then the comments came. Hundreds of them. Some kind and supportive—but some of the most horrific, inhumane things I’ve ever read in my life.
People called me a murderer. Told me I deserved to lose him. Said I was placing blame on everyone but myself. Strangers. Cowards behind keyboards. Tearing apart a grieving mother trying to make sense of the unthinkable.
What they don’t know is I’ve already placed all the blame on myself. Every single day. For three years. I’ve lived in a loop of guilt and what-ifs that never ends. I’ve spent countless sleepless nights replaying every moment, every choice. I’ve stood in the place where it happened. I’ve screamed into pillows and collapsed in showers. I’ve tried to bring him back in dreams, only to wake up to a cold, empty world.
I’ve learned everything I can about drowning, about water safety, about how to keep children safe because if I can’t save my son, maybe I can save someone else’s.
I never had a pool. Bodhi was terrified of swimming in a pool, loved to play in water but was so fearful. Until one day we went to the great wolf lounge and there we discovered the puddle jumper, he had the absolute best time. on May 22, 2022, I let him wear a puddle jumper. I had just ordered his off of Amazon. And suddenly, he wasn’t afraid anymore. He felt invincible. He felt safe. And I didn’t know how dangerous that feeling was.
I didn’t know that puddle jumpers, and other similar flotation devices, train a child’s body to stay vertical in water, the exact position a child drowns in. I didn’t know they build muscle memory that doesn’t translate to swimming. I didn’t know they erase the natural caution children have around water and replace it with false confidence. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.
And then came the worst decision of my life—I agreed to house sit for a family member who had a backyard pool. I didn’t want to. We had just buried my mother in law, they had no one else that could do it. They told me it was childproof, safe, secure.
And I lost everything.
Bodhi & Audrey got out. Quietly. Swiftly. Like children do. And my baby, my moon, my stars the heartbeat of our home—drowned. While his baby sister had to watch the entire scene unfold. If I got there a moment later she could have been gone too.
Do you know what it’s like to try CPR on your own child? To scream until your voice breaks and then keep screaming anyway? To race in your car to the hospital, begging the universe to take you instead? To live every day after with silence where laughter used to be?
Tonight, Bodhi’s video is going viral again. And while some people are hearing his story with compassion, others are saying things so vile, so heartless, it makes me want to disappear entirely. That video wasn’t for attention. It wasn’t for clicks or sympathy. It was to honor my son. To help another family never have to feel what I feel. It was for him. It was all I had left to give.
But what breaks me even more than the hate is the resistance.
Why is everyone so afraid of the education? Why does no one want to learn? Why is it such an inconvenience to acknowledge that something as innocent-looking as a puddle jumper might be hurting more than helping?
Drowning is the number one cause of death for children ages 1 to 4. Not car accidents. Not illness. Drowning. And the fact that we treat water safety like an optional topic, something we can scroll past or argue over, is mind-blowing. If someone had told me what I know today, if someone had shaken me and said, “This device could put your child in danger,” I would have listened. I would’ve begged for the chance to learn.
I would’ve held Bodhi in the pool. I would’ve done the work to teach him how to float. I would’ve ditched the puddle jumper kept him out a pool till he learned how to swim.
Why are we so inconvenienced by our own children? Why do we think holding them in the pool or enrolling them in swim lessons is too much? Why is relaxing more important than protecting their lives?
I promise you, if you ever endure what I have, you will spend the rest of your life begging to go back to the moment when you could just hold your baby.
Even the people saying the worst things..I wouldn’t wish this on them. Not even for a second. Not even a fraction of the pain. I wouldn’t wish the way your chest physically aches from missing your child. I wouldn’t wish having to walk past their room and pretend to survive. I wouldn’t wish waking up every morning realizing your nightmare is your reality.
I don’t share this to make anyone feel bad for me. I share it because everyone deserves to know the truth. The truth about puddle jumpers. About fencing every single pool. About pool safety. About how quickly drowning happens. About the fact that this could happen to anyone, even the most loving, attentive, cautious parents.
Now, in the middle of my grief, I teach water safety to parents, caregivers, and children all over Texas. I tell my story over and over. I hold my pain in my hands and offer it to others as a warning, hoping it will plant a seed of awareness. Hoping it will save someone.
Some days, it helps. Some days, I feel Bodhi in the room, proud of me. Some days, I can light a candle and see his face in its glow.
But today? Today, the flame is gone.
And all I ask, all I beg, is that if you read this, you remember that behind every “water safety post,” behind every “mom on a mission,” there is a little boy who should still be here. A mother whose soul is missing its other half. A grief so deep it sometimes threatens to end me.
Please. Learn from our pain. Let Bodhi’s story mean something. Let his light help protect yours.
He was everything
-Heaven Kervin
JBP Education Coordinator
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